- Renowned universities all over the world are offering free online college classes for interested individuals.
- Courses are offered in various fields like science, engineering, medicine, management, arts, humanities and many more.
Top 10 Universities In The World Offering Free Online College Courses
- These institutes offer courses directly through the university website or through different online learning platforms like edX, Coursera, Udemy etc.
- The free courses most of the time do not offer credit, but in some cases, students can pay a small fee to receive credit in the form of a diploma or certificate of completion.
- There are dedicated masters and professional degree programs offered online for a certain fee.
How We Tested? We collected world university rankings from trusted sources. We measured the quality of education, alumni’s placement at reputable organizations, quality of faculty, research performance and other key indicators. The quality of free online courses offered by these universities was also considered for preparing this list.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a research based university. It was established in 1861 and it is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- It has played a crucial role in the development of different aspects of modern science, engineering, mathematics, and technology. It is known for its innovation worldwide.
- They are the pioneers of offering free online courses across the world.
- They have published thousands of courses over the years through their OpenCourseWare project and served them online free of cost.
- Online classes are offered for a wide range of topics, including engineering, science, mathematics,business management and more.
- MIT OpenCourseWare provides the actual video recording of the class proceedings for learners online.
- MIT is considered the founding member of the popular online course provider edX and it offers most of the course material on their site .
- You can pay a small fee and get certificates issued for the courses you successfully complete on edX.
2. Harvard University
- Harvard was established in 1636 and it is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States.
- The free online courses were created for motivated students from across the world to learn from Harvard’s instructors.
- Harvard is also the co-founding member of the popular online learning platform edX which provides the course material from Harvard.
- These online courses are offered in a various fields and subjects that one can choose as per their interests.
- All courses are available for free. Also, you can receive a verified certificate for course completion by paying a small fee.
3. Stanford University
- Stanford University was founded in the year 1885. It is located in the heart of California’s world famous Silicon Valley, which is home to giant tech companies like Google, Facebook, HP and many more.
- Every year, Stanford university publishes the highest numbers of research papers.
- Stanford University offers the majority of its courses on the popular online learning platform Coursera.
- Stanford offers a large variety of online courses through its official website. Some of these courses are free but for most of the courses, they charge a certain fee.
4. University of California, Berkeley
- UC Berkeley is a prestigious institute where the brightest students from across the world come together to explore, innovate and improve the world.
- It was founded in the year 1868 and it is known and respected for its public research.
- UC Berkeley is one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities. It spends a huge amount of money every year on research and development.
- It is ranked highly in the lists published by popular rating agencies like Academic Ranking of World Universities and U.S. News & World Report Global University Rankings.
- It offers online courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students in various disciplines.
- All the courses offered by the UC Berkeley are listed on edX. You can pay a small fee for getting certificates after completion.
5. Princeton University
- Princeton University is an Ivy League university in Princeton, New Jersey.
- It was founded in the year 1746, it is among the oldest higher education institutions in the United States.
- For almost a few decades now, Princeton University has been ranking either first or second among national universities by U.S. News & World Report.
- It provides online courses on both famous online learning sites edX and Coursera. However, they have listed few courses so far.
- Some of the courses require you to pay a small fee for completion certificates, while others are offered for free.
More Popular Universities Offering Free Online Courses
Here is a list of some of the other important universities from across the world offering courses online. You can also see all universities listed on edX and on Coursera.
1. Imperial College London
2. The Georgia Institute of Technology
3. The University of Texas
4. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
5. Rice University
6. Delft University of Technology
7. Arizona State University
Quality Education Now Available For Everyone
With the advancement of technology and the world becoming a global village, online learning has made it easy to gain access to World Class education at home. A decade ago, you would not have been able to take courses from top-ranked universities across the world, but now all of this is possible.
Make the best use of this opportunity and learn from the thousands of courses that are available online, you can choose the one of your interest and start right away.