A Free Online Education From MIT, Berkeley, Yale, etc.?

You won’t be able to obtain your degree this way, or even get the college credits (at least, not yet), but if you’d just like to take a college course, for your own personal growth, to brush up on the knowledge you acquired in that logic course so long ago, practice your math skills, etc. Then you can do that from the comfort of your own home for free.

Prestigious colleges and universities are now offering what they call “Open Course Ware” online. Basically, they put up all the information from many of their classes, and you’re free to essentially take the class online at no cost. You will obtain all the same information, that the people who were enrolled at the actual university and paying an arm and a leg, received.

MIT OpenCourseWare is my personal favorite. With Anthropology being a passion of mine, and my algebra skills desperately needing attention, they have been a lifesaver. I don’t have the time or the money to go to a college/university right now, but these are classes I’ve really wanted to take, just for me.

No registration is required, and you get all the lecture notes, a list of books that you can purchase or borrow from a library if you want to get the most out of the experience, and exams, for free. Some courses even have videos. And, MIT has the most extensive list of free online courses from their classrooms that I’ve seen to date, which is another reason they’re my favorite. Everything from algebra to mythology to logic and more is included.

I like to couple this with the free online college libraries, such as the extensive University of Pennsylvania “online books page” or even the free Library of Congress online. Berkeley also has a wonderful program, with a nice list of courses.

Hewlett Packard funds Yale courses, among others that they’re looking into funding, for free online. And, even Princeton is getting in on the fun, by publishing many course lectures online.

And, The University of Washington has some very interesting course offerings, such as Greek mythology and Heroic fantasy, among more “practical” courses on nutrition or American history. Carnegie Melon University offers free courses in statistics, biology, physics, French, and much more.

If you’d like to look over your options from other schools as well, click here for an extensive list of open course ware options. That link will take you to the Online Education Database’s lists of open course ware.

If textbooks are going to be a problem for you, and you want to look over some of those for free, that won’t be a problem either! Open Textbook.org offers many online textbooks for free, and they are looking into expanding their selection. You can also take a peek at these Google search results for more open textbook options.

No matter what you want to take in college, you can do so from the comfort of your own home, online, from a prestigious and well respected university or college. Just explore your options, utilize the resources that are now available, and have fun obtaining your free college education for personal growth online!

And, if you do have the ability and willingness to make a donation to one of these programs, it doesn’t have to be a large one, you can help to keep these courses completely free and expand them even further.

*I originally posted this on my blog about saving money.*