Giving Compass' Take:

• WeGrow, an elementary school started by WeWork acquires MissionU, aligning themselves to the education sector and furthers the focus on innovating education and career opportunities for students. 

• How can collaborative models such as these transform the education sector? Will they be effective in the long-term?

• Read about WeWork's other investments into bootcamps as a pathway toward innovating higher education models. 

This fall, when $20 billion startup WeWork opens elementary school WeGrow in New York City,  the 40 inaugural students will start their day with a laughing circle or a meditation session.

Throughout the day, there will be blocks of time set aside for the arts, including drama and dance. And during the week, there will be opportunities for students to meet with WeWork mentors, paired according to the students’ interests–or, in the parlance of WeGrow founder and CEO Rebekah Neumann, according to their “superpassions” and “superpowers.”

Today, she is expanding that vision to include online learning, with the acquisition of higher education alternative MissionU. As part of the deal, MissionU founder Adam Braun, who previously founded nonprofit Pencils of Promise, will join WeWork as WeGrow’s COO.

While WeGrow will be focused, for now, on children ages 3 through 10, MissionU’s core offering and WeWork’s other recent education investments hint at an expanding ambition.

MissionU, for example, targeted students ages 19-25, enrolling them in a one-year program designed as preparation for business intelligence jobs at hiring partners like Warby Parker. Instead of writing tuition checks, students committed to paying MissionU 15% of the pretax income for three years, assuming a salary of at least $50,000.

“The purpose of life, in our opinion, is to be a student of life, for life,” she says. “Not just to study traditional academic subjects, of which I really love studying and are really important to me as well, but also to study how to be a successful human being, how to be a great parent, how to be a great friend, and how to use your superpowers to share with the world.”

Read the full article about WeGrow acquires MissionU by Ainsley Harris at Fast Company