Looking to invest in yourself and your education? You may be apprehensive of taking out student loans and finding the time and commitment to get a full-time degree. Fortunately, in today’s digital age, you don’t need to go back to a traditional academic setting to get world-class training and education. You can gain access to free online courses from top universities!

What is a MOOC?

One of the best ways is to take advantage of MOOCs. What is a MOOC? MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses. They are free online courses that allow participants free access and unrestricted participation in any course available. 

The Benefits of MOOCs

Free online courses have been offered for years, but with the quality, quantity, and elite higher educational organizations becoming involved, the stigma has rapidly changed. This has changed the face of education. Anyone located anywhere has the opportunity to take advantage of courses where previously only elite students had access to. 

In The New York Times article Instruction for Masses Knocked Down Campus Walls, author Tamar Lewin stated, “in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree.”

Elite universities such as Yale, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and dozens of state universities are now offering MOOCs. Unfortunately, there is no diploma and participants have to be self-disciplined to complete the course work. The benefits, however, far outweigh these few drawbacks.

MOOCs are offered for free by professors at the top schools in the world. There is a vast library of courses with a diverse group of learners, offering world-wide exposure. By leveraging technology and analytics, both professors and participants can analyze their performance, continually improving the educational experience.

For those who would like the benefits of free education from elite institutions and have the motivation to do follow-through below are sites, you can go to for more information on MOOCs!

Top Sites for Information about MOOCs

Coursera

Coursera is an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Here are some great courses to give you the skills to jumpstart your career!

• Explore 1600+ online courses from top universities. Join Coursera today to learn data science, programming, business strategy, and more.
• Earn your Business Analytics Certificate from the Wharton School on Coursera. Join now!
• Master Scala Programming fundamentals directly from Scala architect Martin Odersky. Enroll today!
• Master Machine Learning fundamentals in 5 hands-on courses from University of Washington. Enroll today!
• Learn Data Science from Johns Hopkins University on Coursera. #1 Specialization on Coursera. Enroll online today!
• Explore 1600+ online courses from top universities. Join Coursera today to learn data science, programming, business strategy, and more.

• Udemy – Udemy is an example of a site allows anyone to build or take online courses.  Udemy’s site exclaims, “Our goal is to disrupt and democratize education by enabling anyone to learn from the world’s experts.” 

• Coursetalk – CourseTalk, has a comprehensive search of MOOCs and open enrollment courses freely available to anyone. Through the site, students can enroll in programs, communicate with professors and other students and rate & review courses. 

• edX – ed X combines the power of top universities including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and University of California Berkeley to create top-notch open classes.

• Udacity – Udacity is a unique collection of MOOCs, mostly related to computers and robotics. The company was originally founded by roboticists teaching “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.”

• ITunesU Free Courses – Apple’s free app “gives students access to all the materials for courses in a single place. Right in the app, they can play video or audio lectures. Read books and view presentations.”

• Stanford Free Courses –  From Quantum Mechanics to The Future of the Internet, Stanford offers a variety of free courses. Check out Stanford’s Engineering Everywhere link.

• UC Berkeley Free Courses – From General Biology to Human Emotion, Berkley offers a variety of courses.  Check out:  Berkeley Webcasts and Berkeley RSS Feeds.

• MIT Free Courses – Check out MIT’s RSS MOOC feed.  Also see MIT’s Open Courseware.

• Duke Free Courses – Duke offers a variety of courses on ITunesU.

• Harvard Free Courses – From Computer Science to Shakespeare, students may now get a free Harvard education. “Take a class for professional development, enrichment, and degree credit. Courses run in the fall, spring, or intensive January session. No application is required.”

• UCLA Free Courses – Check out free courses such as their writing program that offers over 220 online writing courses each year.

• Yale Free Courses – At Open Yale, the school offers “free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.”

• Carnegie Mellon Free Courses – Carnegie Mellon boosts “No instructors, no credits, no charge.”

Continually check this page to see the latest MOOC offerings!