18 Universities Offering Free Online Courses

Enjoy free content and resources from these top universities

With an increasing number of individuals gaining unfettered access to the internet, several well-known universities started taking the initiative of providing their courses online, for free. Now, scores of schools offer free beginner to advanced level courses online; this enables students to learn whatever they wish, without having to bear the substantial tuition costs attached to physically attending that college.

Non-Credited: Although the knowledge these classes offer is comparable to the classes taught in the university, they are not a replacement for actual college classes as they do not grant any credit. Hence, these free classes are not a substitute for pursuing associate, bachelor’s, or degree programs. Here is also a list of popular online learning platforms.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Counted among the most renowned universities in the world, MIT is famous for providing excellent classes related to the technical, management, and scientific fields. It was one of the first schools to offer its courses online, for free. This project, which still runs successfully, was dubbed ‘MIT Open Courseware’ and involved aggregating videos, text material from faculty and uploading it to the website.

Website: View Resources | YouTube

2. Carnegie Mellon University

Another option for students who need access to quality teaching material, Carnegie Mellon also provides non-credit courses free of cost to learners worldwide. Named the ‘Open Learning Initiative,’ it offers study material (video and textual) on subjects such as Statistics, Biology, Chemistry, French and English.

Website: View Resources | YouTube

3. The University of California, Berkeley

UC Berkeley attempts to deviate from the usual mediums of content delivery and provides content in the form of podcasts and webcasts. Moreover, they offer a broad range of free course material, from subjects such as Astronomy to Law. All these webcasts are hosted on the official website of the university.

Website: View Resources

4. Cambridge University

Cambridge University wants to help more members of the public by sharing its content as widely as possible. The University launched its online learning website in 2008, to provide informative and diverse resources, aiming to help the public learn more about topics that interest them. There is a wide choice of both video and audio resources which has grown on a month-by-month basis.

5. Columbia University

ColumbiaX on EDX are the MOOCs provided by Columbia University on topics ranging from the civil war and reconstruction to data analytics and artificial intelligence. These lessons can be audited for free, or students could choose to receive a verified certificate for a small fee. Some lectures even have video transcripts in multiple languages to serve a global audience.

Website: View Resources

Popular providers: Here is a list of resources to consider online education from recognized providers. Udacity Courses | Udemy Courses | Skillshare Classes | LinkedIn Courses | edX Courses | Datacamp Courses | Mindvalley Courses

6. Cornell University

eCommons is a service of Cornell University Library that offers permanent access to a wide range of Cornell-related digital content of enduring value. With over 38,000 items in its collection in the form of images, videos, reports, and datasets, it is one of the most exhaustive and comprehensive sources of free online lectures.

Website: View Resources

7. Harvard University

Considered the most prestigious university on the planet, the hallowed halls of Harvard are now open to the public on YouTube and are available on the Apple store as well. One can watch Michael Sandel give his famous “Justice” lectures, learn about the intersection of science and cooking, or listen to Yo-Yo Ma perform Bach’s First Suite for Solo Cello. The variety of courses offered by Harvard’s online lectures is expansive, to say the least.

Website: View Ressources | YouTube

8. Northwestern University

Founded in 1851 by John Evans, after whom the city of Evanston is named, Northwestern University currently offers over 25 free courses on Coursera as well as a host of educational and entertaining videos on its YouTube channel. Focusing on topics like leadership and marketing, these courses are ideal for aspiring entrepreneurs among us. Moreover, being a part of Coursera, they have rigid examinations and tests which make long-term learning a certainty.

Website: View YouTube Resources

9. Oxford University

Having joined iTunesU in 2008, Oxford University now has more than 5,360 hours of material online in both audio and video formats across divisions like English, Politics and International Studies, and Philosophy. These materials are available free to the public and are updated on a daily basis. Making Shakespeare’s entire First Folio available for free download, Oxford University becomes one of the world’s first universities to add ePubs to its online database.

10. Princeton University

From full-fledged tutorials to three-minute summaries of research findings, Princeton publishes a broad range of audio and video content for the University community and the general public. Through platform providers, Coursera, edX, Kadenze and NovoEd, Princeton faculty members are providing classes across disciplines like Astrophysical Science, Mathematics, and Sociology to name a few. In fact, their content are made available over numerous popular platforms, to ensure they reach a significant amount of students who can benefit from the knowledge imparted.

Website: View Resources

11. Stanford University

One of the first universities to deliver free content and lectures to the public through iTunesU, Stanford continues to build on its tradition and remains a pioneer in the realm of MOOCs. An archive of audio and video content from schools, departments, and programs across the university, the StanfordX site includes course lectures, faculty presentations, event highlights, music and more. The subjects encompass several disciplines and the education imparted has the same quality as that taught in the classrooms of this esteemed university.

12. University of California, Irvine

UCI was an early adopter of MOOCs as well and provides nearly 50 such free courses on Coursera in a variety of formats: on-demand (anytime) or cohort-based. From topics like grammar and punctuation to networking and security in iOS applications, UCI provides content across the spectrum; even having a considerable number of classes in foreign languages. Being one of the top-rated Universities in the USA, the knowledge gained from their free content is sure to be extremely beneficial.

Website: View Resources

13. University of Notre Dam

The University of Notre Dame, founded in 1842 by a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, is an independent, national Catholic university located in Notre Dame, Indiana. It is one of the few universities that also focuses on theology and peace studies, in addition to content on topics like English and Math through its YouTube channel.

Website: View Resources | YouTube

14. University of Michigan

The University of Michigan provides access to public lectures, classroom videos, news podcasts and other videos to the public for free via its website. Students can access these free courses in subject areas such as engineering, informational science, Spanish, and medicine. Since they cover a wide variety of topics, the University of Michigan’s lectures is used by students all over the world, to enhance and supplement their education.

Website: View Resources

15. Yale University

Open Yale Courses (OYC) was started with the aim of providing access to educational materials to all those who wish to learn. Offering 25 different free courses, ranging from Biomedical Engineering to Regional studies, all lectures were recorded in the Yale College classrooms and are available in video, audio, and text formats on the OYC website as well as YouTube. As all the courses are actual classroom recordings, this is one of the closest experiences of studying in a Yale classroom.

Website: View Resources | YouTube

16. UCLA

Another renowned university dedicated to making education and knowledge accessible to students who cannot physically attend their college, UCLA, like many of its counterparts offers free courses and lectures in the form of webcasts. All the course material is available on the website and covers advanced topics ranging from gene sequencing to constitutional law. Most content seems to be published with the hope that students all around the world can supplement their education from other sources since no lectures cover the core concepts of a subject.

Website: View Resources

17. Utah State University

Utah takes a more traditional approach to providing free course material to students across the globe. All materials are in the form of lecture notes, homework, and assignments and are available on their website, under ‘Utah State OpenCourseWare.’ Covering various departments like Anthropology, Biology, Mathematics, Economics, and so on, the content of the courses is comprehensive, to say the least. Moreover, the quality of these materials is unquestionable as the students physically studying at the University use the same material as well.

Website: View Resources | BruinCast UCLA

18. Tufts University

Concentrating more on the Sciences, Tufts University OCW offers free courses to anyone who wants to learn and has an internet connection. Please note that all content is textual and assignment-based, so if you are looking for instructional course material, Tufts OCW will not be sufficient. However, it does provide a significant amount of assignments that will solidify your core understanding of the topic in question. All material is available on the Tufts University website.

Website: View Resources

Free University Online Courses – Summary

Almost all renowned universities around the world are providing course content online, in some form or the other. Considering the fact that not everyone has the privilege to attend a fancy school, it is proving to be a boon to students around the world.

Whether you are a student in a university already, or just someone who wants to switch careers, the multitude of university courses available online for free, can provide a quality educational backbone for all your future endeavors.

As already mentioned in the second paragraph, bear in mind that these free University courses are no-credit classes and do not replace recognized associate, bachelor’s, or other degree programs.