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Coworking / Education

2U students will get access to WeWork under a new partnership

A new education model: A coworking company is licensing software to an edtech company, which is providing scholarships to coworking members.

The Ollie Chair by RockPaperRobot. (Image via Kickstarter)

WeWork is adding another education offering through a new partnership with Maryland-based edtech company.

On Monday, coworking giant WeWork, which has 200 locations (including 10 in the District),  announced a new partnership with cloud-based learning platform 2U.

Under the deal, WeWork is providing a license to 2U to software created by the Flatiron School. That coding school was acquired by WeWork last year, and represented the coworking company’s first push into education. The platform, called Learn.co, will be integrated into 2U’s offerings as a result. According to an SEC filing, 2U is paying $14.5 million over time for the license and services provided by Flatiron School.

In turn, students enrolled in grad programs and short courses run by Lanham, Md.–based 2U will get access to WeWork locations.

Existing coworking members can take classes, too. 2U, which partners with 35 universities around the country including Harvard University, American University and Georgetown University, is incentivizing the deal by offering $5 million in scholarships over three years to WeWork’s 175,000 members and 4,000 employees around the world who apply for graduate and short courses.

“It is an exciting day for 2U and the beginning of a transformational collaboration,” said 2U CEO and cofounder Chip Paucek in a statement. “Evolving our technology platform, offering our degree programs and short courses to the WeWork community and providing students in our degree programs global access to WeWork spaces is a win, win, win.”

Additionally, next year WeWork and 2U will create a Future of Learning and Work Center in 2019 to host lecture series, master classes and other events. The location of the work center has not been announced.

As Bloomberg noted, the future of coworking could be study hall.

Companies: WeWork / 2U
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