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College and university classes are more costly than ever and many find it impossible to pay the required fees. Nevertheless, the Internet has changed the situation, with several universities offering online classes through open learning programs for free. Although most of these free online courses do not give full credit or certification, they are a perfect way to enhance your expertise and keep the business up-to-date, particularly in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. And there is the bonus of being able to learn at your own pace, anytime, anywhere. Do you want to get free College-level courses? Here are some of the sites that offer the best resources for you to take the best online courses for free.
1. MIT OpenCourseware Online Courses for Free
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been a specialist in delivering college courses online. The university gives you the opportunity to browse its published classes and access them via their OpenCourseware website. The advantage of using the site is that you have access to a vast selection of individual classes that the university has delivered over the years. The limitation is you would also need to buy textbooks to meet the lesson plans. However, since these are archived courses, the program does not offer certification or qualification, anyway. Yet they are a good tool if you want to extend your expertise on certain topics.
2. Carnegie Mellon OpenLearning
Carnegie Mellon University provides online classes free of charge for those hoping to use them. This also provides manuals to professors who would like to teach these classes to their students. There are short courses for private learners on subjects like computer science, biology, psychology, and more. The drawback is that the online course numbers provided here are much smaller than many other online learning platforms. The online courses for free offered by Carnegie Mellon are close to what a charged student will get, without any of the college credit or teacher access.
3. Stanford Online
Stanford Online is the website Stanford University is delivering all of its online classes from. Although you will have to pay fees to attain a diploma or degree across the web, the online learning courses offered by the university are free of charge for everyone. This includes courses offered by numerous university colleges, including Stanford School of Medicine and Stanford Business School, among others. Such free classes are especially beneficial for those pursuing certificates for Continuing Medical Education (CME), and can be obtained by completing those classes on the internet without having to pay a penny.
4. Harvard Online
If you’re interested in Harvard University classes, others are offered by the institution through its online portal. Although some of these courses are charged for, there are plenty offered for free as well. Several of the free classes offered by the university include social studies, software development, app development, and informatics. When filtering according to free classes, there are at least 71 accessible on Harvard Online, so take a look at which ones can attract you.
5. Open Yale Online Courses for Free
Open Yale Classes resemble Harvard Online and Stanford Online, offering only Yale classes. Although the site is largely limited to the topics taught at the university, Open Yale Courses provides a number of live campus lecturer videos. If you are searching for premium courses, the inclusion of videos makes the web a perfect choice but understand more from watching rather than reading.
6. FutureLearn
FutureLearn is another website delivering classes from colleges and organizations worldwide. As in most online learning sites, courses are free, but qualifications entail payment. The website features an extensive variety of classes in various disciplines, as well as separate classes targeted at enhancing life skills. FutureLearn, for instance, has courses devoted to developing budgeting abilities, online research skills, critical thinking, and practice in job interviews. The website is a perfect resource for those who seek to expand their intellectual awareness as well as practical daily skills.
7. OpenLearn
The OpenLearn portal provides The Open University content. The university strives to be accessible, providing as many students as possible the chance to study for free. While the university has actual classrooms located in the UK, through the OpenLearn app, it has now opened the material to everyone online. The classes at the online college are exceptionally well thought out and offer several different subjects. A fantastic aspect is it provides courses for different levels of expertise and experience, from novices to experts. After you have finished a course, you can request an attendance report to show prospective employers. Although that does not count for university grades, it offers proof that you have completed The Open University courses successfully.
8. UC Berkeley Class Central
UC Berkeley has a number of free online education choices, just like the other universities on this page. The school has somewhat fewer classes than the above-mentioned schools but has some extra lectures, webinars, and RSS updates, making it easier to keep up with the subjects you select.
9. EdX
EdX is one of the world’s leading major open online course providers bringing access to public courses from universities across the world to more than 14 million people. The platform was originally developed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and now features courses from the likes of Boston University, Caltech, and plenty of other reputable universities all over the globe. On the website, you can learn courses in a wide variety of subjects, including science, education, history, medicine, and more. Although the courses are free, degrees and diplomas are not confirmed. EdX provides online certificates and online master’s degrees on the website but both require premiums or tuition costs to be charged.
10. Khan Academy
The Khan Academy, in collaboration with other post-secondary colleges, provides an accessible, well-organized interface. Khan Academy also curates other courses from across the world, providing incredible coverage on many different topics. Khan Academy is also extremely functional to the more well-known instructional platforms, which makes learning objectives easier to maintain.
11. Open Culture Online Courses for Free
When you are unable to find just the content you are searching for, consider the listing of online courses for free by Open Culture. The website covers 1,000 academic seminars, videos, and podcasts from across the globe. The platform contains plenty of content available only on private university pages, all in sections that are easily searchable. It guarantees that you can discover hundreds of university courses by accessing and checking the website of each institution. The catalog of Open Culture includes lessons from England, Australia, Wales, and various state universities across the U.S. A very useful tool for discovering lots of courses in one study area.
12. Udemy
The online courses for free offered by Udemy are close in design to those provided by Coursera, but still, allow users to create personalized classes. Working with several prominent educators and colleges, the website is combining many sites’ flexible models with a strong focus on high-quality content. Nevertheless, this is another site that combines free and paid content.
13. Codecademy
Codecademy is a forum primarily devoted to coding teaching. Where most coding platforms implement a session process for example/practice, Codecademy provides a live interactive portal. It ensures you can practice coding while also watching the content for the class. The Codecademy courses are well-developed and easy to understand and the website is also well-structured. The Codecademy includes a structured dashboard that helps you to track your development, and conducts lessons into full packages. This helps you to know a whole language without having to manually decide on the next lesson.
14. Alison
In comparison to previous sites on these pages, Alison is a free training platform providing qualifications in some areas. Alison provides primarily business, technology, and health courses but also language learning courses. When you need certification for your education, it is a perfect choice because Alison also provides classes in the school curriculum.
These online courses are a great way to broaden your knowledge free of charge on certain subjects, particularly to continue your study from home until the outbreak of the virus subsides.
15. Coursera
Coursera is yet another online learning site from which free classes are provided by several universities and corporations. Unlike all of the other course suppliers on the list, you can take classes free of charge, but without a subscription, you won’t get accreditation or a diploma. Even so, the web provides a wonderful online learning tool. Big universities including Duke and Columbia offer web classes. Elsewhere, Google’s training classes and businesses like Intel or Amazon can be accessed as well. If you’re using the platform’s credential and specialization functionality, there is a monthly membership open to Coursera subscribers. However, if you prefer the review option, all individual courses are available to use for free. This allows you entry to all in-course materials and seminars, excluding a credential or accreditation.
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