The world’s most subscribed to YouTuber and the university chancellor are an odd pair on camera.
MrBeast, the internet personality most famous for his videos documenting random acts of extreme charity, is in shorts, animatedly talking and gesturing with his hands. East Carolina University Chancellor Philip G. Rogers is wearing a zip-up sweater over a button-up shirt.
The chancellor nods along as MrBeast – whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson – explains the ever-growing appeal of YouTube and the challenges of finding people to work on his videos.
Donaldson joined Rogers on camera to announce a new partnership with the Greenville, North Carolina, university, a program to be molded by the MrBeast staff and aimed at helping those aspiring to work in the creator space. The program would allow students to earn a credential tied to content creation.
Announced in November 2022, the hope was to launch the program in six to 12 months, according to a news release at the time.
Donaldson explained in the video announcement that his staff poured their “heart and soul” into the courses and that the team pulled in the “smartest YouTubers on the planet.”
“We pulled all our resources and all our knowledge and just dumped it in this program,” Donaldson said. “You’re not going to get a more aggregated source of knowledge on how to effectively help YouTubers.”
Nearly three years later, there’s no sign of the program. Neither Donaldson’s camp or the university will say if or when it will launch.
East Carolina University did not answer USA TODAY’s questions about the program, and instead sent a one sentence statement.
“We continue to operate within the terms of the agreement that outlines the educational partnership between ECU and MrBeast, LLC,” said Jeannine Manning Hutson, the university’s chief communications officer.
A statement from Matthew Hiltzik, a spokesperson for MrBeast, offered more details, but did not offer a timeline on its launch.
“While current company leadership and ECU are having ongoing discussions evaluating the future direction of any program,” Hiltzik’s statement read, “MrBeast continues to permanently employ several hundred local residents and hundreds more temporarily on different projects, making a significant impact on the local economy.”
The stalled program showcases the perils that a methodical, bureaucratic institution, in this case a university, faces in working with social media influencers used to operating by their own rules and timetables. That approach has clearly worked well for Donaldson, though the university is left answering questions about a program that may never materialize.
In its announcement, the university directed potential applicants to creator.ecu.edu, where they could register for updates. Years later, there’s still no sign of the credentialing program. And creator.ecu.edu now leads to a dead webpage.
To be sure, launching an academic program can be an arduous and time consuming process, and Donaldson is busy. In addition to his YouTube channel, he has a burger company, a snack company and a charity. He also has a show on Amazon Prime, Beast Games, where five thousand contestants compete in a series of games to win $5 million.
A few weeks ago, he was in São Paulo for the kickoff of the NFL season, a game streamed on YouTube. He was one of many influencers brought on to promote the event, which YouTube announced set a record for the “most concurrent viewers of a live stream.”
He is also getting sued and facing a slew of negative controversy. Contestants from his show in 2024 filed a lawsuit alleging, among other things, that they were exposed to “dangerous circumstances and conditions as a condition of their employment.” Donaldson has said those complaints were blown out of proportion.
The same year, a slew of online rumors prompted Donaldson to announce that he had hired a law firm to review the allegations and the company’s internal culture. That review found that “allegations of sexual misconduct (e.g. pedophilia, grooming, child pornography, etc.) between company employees and minors are without basis,” according to a letter Donaldson posted online.
“The allegations were soundly rejected, including by alleged victims,” the letter read.
Controversies aside, Donaldson remains the world’s most popular YouTuber with more than 440 million subscribers. Beast Games has already been renewed for a second season. And though some decry his charity as publicity stunts, many have benefited from sudden infusions of cash or medical help. He and Mark Rober, also a YouTube personality, recently helped raise $40 million for WaterAid, an international nonprofit focused on providing clean water globally.
He is even starting to talk about running for president, while acknowledging he is too young at age 27.
East Carolina University has about 27,000 students, making it the fourth largest university in the state. It competes in Division 1 FBS football and touts on multiple sections of its website that it’s the only university in the state with “a dental school, a medical school, and a college of engineering and technology at the same institution.”
It’s also in Greenville, Donaldson’s hometown and current base of operations. The star has had a colorful relationship with the town. The Washington Post had reported that residents had grown accustomed to explosions from his stunts and videos and his larger-than-life presence.
MrBeast has proven a boon for some on East Carolina’s campus, but especially for the school itself. About a year after announcing the content creation course, Donaldson gave a random student $20,000 – gifted in metal briefcases as part of one of his videos. The university’s press office drafted a press release about the surprise gift, while again mentioning the partnership between it and Donaldson.
Donaldson’s company since 2022 has rented out facilities at East Carolina University, according to contracts obtained via an open records request. His company paid the school $4,000 to rent out their track for two days. In another case, the company agreed to pay $54,000 to create a temporary clinic to provide hearing aids to those in need.
Donaldson didn’t graduate from college nor did he attend East Carolina University.
He briefly attended Pitt Community College, but he dropped out to focus on his YouTube career. That hasn’t stopped others, as reported by the Raleigh News and Observer, from saying he attended East Carolina University, sometimes including Google’s AI search results.
In its marketing and on social media, the university repeatedly said aspiring students didn’t have to be in a four-year program or even in Greenville to enroll in the forthcoming program. In a news release, Sharon Paynter, a university administrator, said the program would help the school to “provide alternative pathways for career preparation,” and allow it, “to meet students where they are in the workforce landscape.”
But the parameters of the program are murky, and it is unclear how it would be developed.
The contracts by MrBeast to use facilities and the clinic he helped host, for example, are dense technical documents with concerns about media rights, insurance, and legal compliance. The contract for the hearing aid clinic is 10 pages long and specified details as precise as the number of patients to be served and how much they would spend on fitting equipment and related supplies.
In contrast, the agreement between the university and MrBeast, the company, is a tight two-pages. And the section laying out the program curriculum is a paragraph long, stating the university and the company would work together to develop the curriculum.
The agreement is also supposed to last five years and comes with the arrangement that ECU and MrBeast would exclusively work together to develop the program and refrain from developing similar programs without written permission.
Whereas degree programs have to go through rigorous faculty and administrative oversight, which can take years, nondegree programs don’t require the same kind of oversight. They should by comparison be easier to get off the ground, said Fritz Vandover, a distributed learning program analyst at the University of Minnesota.
Vandover, who also cohosts a podcast focused on the inner workings of universities called Gettin’ Stuff Done in Higher Education, has developed certificate programs for universities and in the private sector. He said the timeline for six to 12 months is a normal time range for a credential like the one the East Carolina described. Any longer, and they may face stiffer market competition.
That’s because, Vandover said, one of the biggest challenges associated with the programs is getting the word out. That hurdle is especially high with internet advertising where nascent courses have to compete against powerhouse programs, like Grand Canyon or Arizona State University, offering degrees online. Partnering with Donaldson would address the publicity problem while the university could handle the academic production.
“Something that isn’t obvious is holding up that agreement,” Vandover said. “A nondegree short-form credential, it normally would not take this long.”
He said the program could have stalled for many reasons. It might be that Donaldson stood to make too little for it to be worthwhile. Or the university could have struggled to find the resources to produce the courses. The university in September announced plans to cut $25 million from its budget over the next three years to address a “changing enrollment environment facing higher education.”
John Katzman, the CEO of the edtech company Noodle, echoed much of what Vandover said and added he was surprised the university announced the program without a binding contract. The memorandum of agreement is a nonbinding letter of intent save for the exclusivity provision. Asked what it might mean that both parties failed to sign a contract, Katzman replied via email, “That MrBeast got busy doing something else?”
So what has been done? Joel Diaz, a prospective student who signed up to receive more information about the program, shared with USA TODAY a single follow-up email he had received from the university. It was two paragraphs long and said university staff would keep him updated with their progress over the next few months. It also said the admission team would be in contact. Another said he had never gotten any updates from the university.
Diaz expressed interest in the program, he wrote to USA TODAY on social media, as a big fan of YouTube and blogging. He added that he knew Donaldson was from the town and that, “I think he does a lot there for the community.”
And though it remains to be seen if the ECU program will ever manifest, Donaldson did bring his talents to another university.
It was 2023, and he posted a picture of himself in front of a Harvard Business school sign. He wore blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a loose black sweater, garb that could have come from Steve Jobs’ closet (though the former Apple CEO favored gray New Balances while Donaldson rocked all-white sneakers).
“I taught a class at Harvard which is pretty funny,” he wrote, “because I dropped out of college after only going for two weeks haha”
Chris Quintana is an investigative reporter at USA TODAY. He can be reached at cquintana@usatoday.com or via Signal at 202-308-9021. He is on X at @CQuintanaDC