The University of Cumbria has decided to allow their students to pay for two of their courses with bitcoins.

The university, whose headquarters are in Carlisle and have campuses all over England, including London, have decided to try out accepting the newish cryptocurrency as payment for to course. The courses are a Certificate of Achievement in Sustainable Exchange and a Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Leadership. These two courses are part of Cumbria’s Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS), which is fairly new, only seeing its first year of operation in 2013.

Professor Jim Bendell is in charge of the IFLAS and thinks that “learning by doing” is the best way to test out the University’s decision to accept bitcoins.

He also says that “to help inform our courses on complementary currencies, we are trialling the acceptance of them (bitcoins). The internal discussions about currency and payment innovation and the practical implications for different departments have been insightful.”

“Some support Bitcoin due to its speed and cost, others due the new era of financial freedom it could enable. Others are concerned about it and how it will affect economies and society,” he said, and added that, “others think that what comes next will be even more important. We think it is essential to become better informed, and analyze it from many different perspectives.”

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[via GigaOM, International Business Times]