Open university

In theory, an open university is any university with an open admissions policy - in other words, anyone can apply and get accepted for a degree course, irrespective of the qualifications they hold. However, a truly open admissions policy can lead to horrendous costs of teaching, very high levels of student drop-out and severe dissatisfaction from students, parents, employers and government - thus in practice some restrictions are imposed.

In practice, the term "open university" is applied mainly to those universities who teach mostly at a distance and have a more or less open admissions policy (some much more open than others).

More or less the first open university was the Open University set up in Britain in 1999. In the UK this is called just the Open University. European analysts normally call it the UK Open University or UKOU for short.

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