We all know that higher education is expensive and that the cost been skyrocketing in the last decade. The good news is that there are many ways to take college-level courses online for free, including MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, which are often offered by prestigious universities like Harvard and Stanford. MOOCs are open for anyone with an internet connection and offer lectures from top-notch professors from all over the world. That means you don’t have to spend a fortune to fill your time at home with learning about a new subject or . You will just need to be self-motivated to be successful. Here are the best sites to find online courses for free.
1. Coursera
Coursera is a leader in delivering free and low-cost classes for virtual learners. You can find thousands of free online college classes on Coursera. The platform offers what’s known as massive open online courses. Many of these courses are taught by large, 4-year universities. There are two ways to search for courses: by subject or by institution. If you choose to search by institution, you can limit your search to specific countries. When you register with Coursera, free courses are marked with “free” highlighted in yellow. While some of these online college classes are free to take, many others you will have to pay for to access them. Coursera offers a subscription-based model. You can either pay a monthly fee of $49 or pay upfront for the year for $399. No matter how you choose to pay, you will gain total access to over 3,000 courses, projects and professional certificates.
To learn more about this provider, check out our Coursera profile.
2. Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative
Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative doesn’t offer nearly as many free online courses as other virtual learning platforms. However, if you’re interested in fields like business, computer science, data science, engineering, and technology, then you can find online courses for taught by leading experts in their respective field. CMU is continually adding new online courses that anyone can take for free. You will need to register as an independent learner to access courses at Carnegie Mellon.
3. Harvard Online
Harvard University offers free classes in nearly a dozen areas. For example, you can find many of the Harvard free online college courses on topics from famous literature to big data. Many of their most popular free courses are taught by faculty from the world-famous Harvard Business School. Each course outlines the following valuable information:
- How long it will take to complete the course
- Time commitment each week
- Difficulty level for each course
- Topics the course will cover
Some courses offer a verified certificate for a fee ranging from $49 to $199 per course. If you opt to receive a certificate, you have a tangible credential to show for all of your hard work.
4. Stanford Online
You can find dozens of online courses for free available from Stanford Online. These courses are taught by many of Stanford’s world-renowned faculty. A lot of these classes are about digital technology and engineering. In addition to online courses, Stanford Online offers lots of free online content in the form of articles, eBooks, and webinars. If your course is open for enrollment, it will say “available”. Otherwise, the course is not open for enrollment. Additionally, Stanford partners with 2 online learning platforms, edX and Coursera, to offer their programs. You will be taken to one of those partner sites to complete your coursework.
5. Open Learn
Open Learn is a free course platform that provides content for anyone who wants to learn new skills or improve their knowledge in a variety of subjects including business, technology, languages, education, politics, health and much more. You can use the Open Learn to browse more than 1,000 free online courses, videos and interactive learning material. These free courses are listed under the free courses section. You can search for classes by using keywords or by subject. Each course lists how many hours it will take to complete as well as what skill level the course is – i.e., beginner, intermediate or advanced. The Open Learn database is a pioneer in online learning. It has been around since 2006 – and was one of the first open course platforms. They’ve served over 100 million learners since their inception.
Key Takeaway
In short, if you’re interested in finding online courses for free that you can take from home, start your search at Coursera. The platform offers thousands of open online courses from many accredited universities around the world. If your focus is more on computer science and engineering, check out Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative. Harvard and Stanford are two of the most prestigious universities to offer online courses for free. Lastly, other great resource to find free virtual learning opportunities include edX and Alison.com.
