Universities With the Best Free Online Courses
No tuition money? No problem! There are many top universities that offer free courses online. This list ranks some of the best free university courses for people who want to enhance personal knowledge or advance in their current field.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)
If you are looking for a wide range of free courses online, MIT is your best option. There are more than 1,800 free courses offered through the school's OpenCourseWare project. Courses are in audio, video and text format and can be translated into a number of different languages. People from all over the world use OpenCourseWare and 96 percent of visitors say they would recommend the site to someone else.
2. Open University (open.ac.uk)
The Open University is the UK's largest academic institution. The school's OpenLearn website gives everyone free access to undergraduate and graduate level course materials from The Open University. Courses cover a broad range of topics, such as arts and history, business, education, IT and computing, mathematics and statistics, science, health and technology.
3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)
Carnegie Mellon University offers a huge collection of free online courses and course materials through a program known as the Open Learning Initiative. OLI courses are set up to allow anyone at the introductory college level to learn about a particular subject without the help of a formal instructor. Course options include, but are not limited to, statistics, biology, chemistry, economics, French and physics.
4. Tufts University (tufts.edu)
Like MIT, Tufts University has OpenCourseWare that is free to everyone. Courses are sorted by school (School of Medicine, School of Arts and Sciences, etc.) and include lecture notes, assignments and other supplementary materials.
5. Stanford (stanford.edu)
Stanford University, one of the world's leading academic institutions, has joined forces with iTunes U to provide access to Stanford courses, lectures, interviews and more. Courses can be downloaded and played on your iPod, PC, or Mac and can also be burned to a CD. If you don't have iTunes, you can download it here for free.
6. University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu)
UC Berkley has been offering live and on-demand webcasts of select courses since 2001. There are now hundreds of current and archived UC Berkley courses available as podcasts and webcasts. Courses cover a wide range of subjects, including biology, astronomy, chemistry, computer programming, engineering, psychology, legal studies and philosophy.
7. Utah State University (usu.edu)
Utah State University also provides access to an oleo of free online courses. Study options include everything from Latin and anthropology to physics and theatre arts. The text based courses are comprehensive and can be downloaded as a zip file or viewed directly on the site.
8. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)
Kutztown University's Small Business Development Center offers the largest collection of free business and entrepreneurial courses available on the web. Course topics include accounting, finance, government, business law, marketing and sales. Interactive case studies, comprehensive text, slides, graphics and streaming audio all help to demonstrate the concepts presented in each course.
9. University of Southern Queensland (usq.edu.au)
The University of Southern Queensland in Australia provides free access to a number of different courses through their OpenCourseWare initiative. Courses from each of the five faculties are available and cover a broad range of topics, including communication, technology, science, career planning, teaching and multimedia creation.
10. University of California, Irvine (uci.edu)
UC Irvine recently joined the OCW Consortium to begin providing free university level courses online. Right now, there are only a handful of options to choose from, but the list is growing. Current courses cover topics like capital markets, financial planning, human resources and e-marketing. Course materials typically include syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams.
