I wish I could upvote/boost this more than once each. I'm also amused by proud proclamations that

They also offer certificates!

I mean, my company offered certificates, too, when you completed training courses. Our receptionist, Dawn, made them up real fancy on her computer, then printed them out on high-quality paper and our manager signed them. I suspect these "certificates" may be just as valuable as Dawn's were.

I have no horse in this race either way. According to wiki:

Two years later, the university was accredited for degree-granting programs through the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC)

Currently the DEAC is recognized by Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the United States Department of Education as an accreditor of institutions of higher education.

It looks like there are potential issues with transferring credits to more traditional schools.

If I were a hiring manager, I would certainly raise an eyebrow to see that school on a resume.

Edit: While there is no tuition, there are fees from a couple thousand for an associates up to slightly under five thousand for a master's.

Maybe I am wrongly interpreting your comment but

Are the programs accredited?
University of the People is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission. The Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a recognized accrediting agency. 

Source: https://www.uopeople.edu/programs/certificate/computer-science/

They are very up front with saying they are nationally accredited, which is a lower bar, I admit. But that's the trade off I suppose.

I still wish I had gone through here instead of the for profit college I went to that was so expensive and was utterly trash despite having accreditation.

Regardless of lack of ability to transfer credits, I will recommend this over any for profit university at this point.

Per Wikipedia:

According to the University of the People, they charge no tuition fees but students must pay some administrative fees to cover course assessments, ranging from $2,460 for an associate's degree (two years) to $4,860 for a bachelor's degree (four years). These include processing fees for applications and final exam assessments.

The university does not participate in federal financial aid programs, but it does offer scholarships to eligible students

If you click through to their courses they list a fee for assessment. So part of it, at least, is that you can get the course materials for free but if you want them to assess you for a certificate, you pay a fee.

Right? Tuition was a fraction of what I paid every year at a real massive university

Added that it's national which is more common for online and would mean you can't transfer to standard most likely, and added the blurb on costs!

I had no idea "hippy dippy" was a real phrase, I thought the lego movie just made that up

Western governor's, at a glance, appears to be about 8 times more expensive, just on the tuition alone. Who knows how much the rest is.

So in this case you pay less, but you get a lesser accreditation. Might not work for everyone, but I wish more people were aware of UOPeople as an option since I feel like there are a couple type of people that could benefit from it.

1. People who don't know what they wanna do but feel like they need to get into college (May as well do it cheap as dirt)
2. People who due to financial situation won't go to college any other way (Millions of people are begging for debt forgiveness because their degrees didn't help them at all)
3. People who were planning on going to online college with a similar level of accreditation, can save like 40 grand by going here instead.
4. Those who want the more structured learning experience of college as that's how they learn, but aren't as concerned with the name.
5. Industry vets who are required to get some sort of degree for whatever reason like it's required by stupid HR and need to check a box.

So my main note to anyone reading this, DO NOT pay full college prices to any university with only the national accreditation. There are a ton of them. If you're going to one with only the distance learning accreditation, it better be at a STEEP discount (like my beloved UOpeople).

As for the name I can only shrug. Fingers crossed they are able to get their regional accreditation that they dream of and then some positive coverage makes them a house hold name, cause yeah the name sounds a "little" fake.