Kick Off Your Shoes and Relax While You Earn a Free Education
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If you’ve attended college, and lived on campus, you can probably relate to hanging out all night and somehow making it to class in your t-shirt, jogging pants, and house shoes. Well, now you don’t have to relive that experience again should you want to get your education, nor pay for it.
You can get your free education from the comforts of home through the Massively Open Online Courses or more commonly known as MOOCs. The most well-known are Coursera and Open edX, so I won’t bother discussing those much.
The following education platforms offer everything you could want: Finance, Science and Medicine, Mathematics, Social Sciences, Classics and Humanities, Law, Computer Science and Technology. In the end, you are the driving force behind your education. You might as well teach yourself for free. If none of these work, head on over to Germany where students (even international students) learn free!
As you know, I firmly believe everyone should have an entrepreneurial spirit. If you work in corporate America, it’s more the reason to. You don’t want to allow your family’s financial state to rest in anyone’s hand but your own. So my first free education site is an online business school, My Own Business, Inc. Here, you can take an online business administration course, free. You’ll learn how to create business plans, work on marketing tactics, handle your own accounting, and learn e-commerce strategies.
Similar to Coursera and edX, Udemy also allows you to build your own courses. You’ll have access to some of the top professors and content in the country. Before you get too excited browsing around, do note some of their content is at a cost.
I’d say it’s a 50/50 chance that you’ve heard of ALISON. It’s a great free educational website where students can earn certifications, online. You’ll learn health, business, technology, and languages. It’s one of the most recommended sites on the net amongst freelancers. So if you have a business and want to show off your skills, earn your certificate from Alison and post your achievement on your website. It’s a great way to impress future clients and give you a bargaining chip for your proposals and bids.
Yes, you read that right. iTunesU is another free online education platform. This, of course, is for you Apple product lovers because it does not integrate with Google, Windows, or Android devices. However, users can always download iTunesU app to their desktop! This is worth mentioning for those stuck on a train headed to work. You have no excuse! It’s easy to find what you want, by topic or genre, because it’s categorized similar to the iTunes store.
Prestigious Universities
Let the rumors be put to rest! Yes, there are prestigious universities that place their courses online for you to access, free. Most of these universities offer their courses through Coursera or edX. You can catch their courses through RSS feeds also. These courses are the real deal as you can stream real videos of the campus lectures. They are easy to navigate courses, and you can find the professional certificate you’d like and learn that way! A few schools you can be a proud student of include:
- Stanford University, Stanford Online
- Harvard Extension
- Dartmouth University (new to the list this Fall semester)
- Open Yale Courses
- UC Berkeley
- MIT
Codecademy and Code
For the wanna-be computer geek inside of you, check out Codecademy and Code. These two online schools feature coding courses. Codecademy provides a live practice learning environment, so you’ll code while you learn. You can organize your lessons in modules so you can have continuous learning.
Code is similar, but it also offers kid-friendly courses. You also have access to other tech topics such as robotics and app writing.
Memrise is listed here for those who specifically want to learn a new language. There are many other courses available as well; it’s just that this is truly an excellent visual site.
Another site that’s been around for a while and worth note is LingQ. Here, they do offer free content as well, but once you upgrade you have access to unlimited lessons, and it’s a learn-as-you-go program. It will adjust to what you’ve learned already (yes, that means testing). Sign up for free to try out LingQ.
So hit the books (and next week we’ll talk about where you can get those for free as well).
~ Independent, Smart, Diva
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Thanks for sharing. These look much better than the thousands and thousands of dollars I have in student loans right now.
I have been thinking about going to grad school lately. It would be nice if it were free 🙂
I loooooooove Code Academy. I have been taking their html, css and javascript classes and they are superb!!! I learned so much already.
I’ve actually been considering taking a few online classes to further my education. I love the idea of being able to learn for free, thats how things should be!
I am going to have to take a closer look at this.
I am currently taking online courses but I had to PAY for mine.
I wonder if I can get the class I need for free and they would be transferable here in Canada?
Off to look!
What a great resource you’ve made. I think it’s so important to never stop learning.
ITunes U is such a great resource! You can learn about just about anything you can think of.
I hve thought about doing an online course but have not been able to decide on a topic. Did not realize itunes had classes.
Love that there are actually free classes out there. Will definitely be looking into this.
Wow… I have never heard of any of these courses… I didn’t know there were so many choices.
I am enrolled in a MOOC course right now and I love it. I’m sure I will take more after this one.
I didn’t realize there were so many places you can get a free education from. Good to have these resources on hand because I’m thinking of going back to school.
Wow there are a lot of great options. Great way to learn from the comfort of your home!
I had actually never heard of ALISON. Thanks for all the resources!
I had no idea there were so many online course options. I had only really heard of EdX before. Thanks for sharing!
I had no idea these resources excited. What a neat and affordable way for people to continue their education.
There are a few here I had not heard of before and I am looking forward to checking them out.
Great list to choose where to get free education.
I haven’t heard of most of these actually. It’s so nice to know there are so many channels to turn to for education!
I’d heard of Udemy, but I had no idea iTunes had courses available! Very sweet! I’ve been thinking about going back to school, but not sure what degree I want.
My hubby is an Apple lover. It’s good to know they have a program too.
I am loving all of the sites that you have with these amazing resources. Thank you for sharing!
I currently just was speaking with you and I love your site. I wish there were more women like yourself who would do more to help us, you’re awesome!!!! I currently have a quick question though. How can we start the process of budgeting and saving for bill paying? Do you know of any schools or banks that can be used or were to get more info? Meaning women who are single don’t have much or have bad credit and need to learn the steps to starting the process of starting over.
Rosalinda,
I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
To answer your question about budgeting and saving for bills, I have two posts that can currently help. 4 Steps towards Saving Money and Keeping it There addresses creating a savings goal and pretty much saving and hiding money for yourself. Be an Outstanding Contributor to Your Community! Donate to Your Favorite Charities Doing Everyday Tasks addresses ways to earn money for charities; however, many of these methods, you can pocket and use towards your savings goals.
Now, as far as starting over, that’s a whole blog post waiting to be written, and since there is a need for it, I will work on that this week.
As of now, I suggest work on being your own creditor. The rich get rich by paying themselves interest rates. Some banks actually allow you to take a loan against your own saving accounts. That’s why it’s important to start the account as soon as you can. Over time, you build a good rapport with the bank and can apply for small loans and work your way up to larger loans. After you’ve saved so much money, place it into a CD and let it roll over year after year. You can borrow against a CD as well for many institutions.
ISDiva
Thank you for this post. I have been looking at ways that we could afford for me to go back to school and this post is just what the doctor ordered.
Shared your post on my FB page – this is really good info. There are so many in people that would benefit from this,
Wow! Who knew so many amazing schools had programs like that?!?
This is a great list of resources. Thank you for taking the time to fill us in! I am a huge fan of Udemy.
I have never heard of ALISON before, but I am intrigued to check it out now. I love to learn new skills so it’s perfect for me.
I am DEFINITELY going to check out a few of these options for online coursework. Thank you! #Bookmarked