Best online colleges Take Online Classes For Free At Many Colleges And Universities
Saturday, October 2, 2010 8:57:35 PM
Several leading colleges, universities and technical schools offer opportunities to participate in free online courses where students can learn new skills or brush up on existing abilities. Free online courses can also help students save hundreds to thousands of dollars, particularly in instances where degree-related credits aren't required. MIT, UC Berkeley, Columbia and Yale are only a few of the prominent institutions that offer free online business courses, technology courses, humanities courses and more.
Through what's known as an OpenCourseWare Consortium, men and women who want to enroll in free online courses can study a variety of topics in different languages from colleges and universities throughout the world. Courses include podcasts, exams and instruction or lectures provided in the form of text and YouTube video. Colleges, universities and technical schools as early as late 2007 have been establishing YouTube presences, according to OpenCulture.com. It's referred to as YouTubeU. Getting more information about online degrees can be to your benefit.
President Barack Obama has reportedly supported free online courses, which many see as a means of improving access to higher education. More recently, an Inside Higher Education report noted that the Obama administration is crafting a program that would provide federal money to community colleges for offering free online courses. Career-oriented courses would receive preference, according to the Inside Higher Education article.
Students aren't alone in benefiting from free online courses, some say. Colleges, universities and technical schools might garner publicity by providing free online course lectures and conferences on offerings such YouTube, OpenCulture.com suggests. A July report in artstechnica.com noted that MIT's free online course website itself receives 1.5 million-plus page views a month. The site, known as MIT OpenCourseWare, has been awarded a Science Magazine Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE), a July MIT news announcement noted.
An MIT education emphasizes studies in the sciences - engineering & computer science courses and media arts & science courses, for instance - but also incorporates programming in areas such as writing and humanistic studies. The institution's free online course site includes materials for more than 2,000 courses in all, which gives some idea as to the extent of MIT offerings. For the spring 2010 semester, UC Berkeley's free online courses in the form of podcasts and webcasts include subject areas such as anthropology, psychology, demography, public health, economics and intro to environmental economics. Archived course studies also are available to students interested in free online studies, the UC Berkeley website shows. Carnegie Mellon and Michigan and Penn State universities also provide free online courses.
To keep employees up to date on work-related issues and skills, employers often pay for workers to attend job-related conferences and workshops. If employers are cutting back on costs such as these, or in instances where employees want to take their own initiative, they might explore free workshops and conferences that private companies also make available online at no cost. There are free webinars in topics that might help small business owners as well. Many more resources about online course are available on the internet.
A few colleges and universities also offer tuition-free degrees to those who qualify. A January Bloomberg Businessweek article highlighted the online University of the People that it noted includes students from developing nations. The provost and computer science department chair at this particular university are from Columbia and New York universities, according to a November 2009 news item on the University of the People website.
Free online courses don't require applications. Students interested in applying to tuition-free colleges and universities, however, might note that institutions have different acceptance requirements, the Bloomberg article suggests. The Bloomberg Businessweek article on the web also mentions tuition-free colleges such as Cooper Union and Alice Lloyd.
Serving the purpose of informing, educating and advancing those with the curiosity to start, these courses might just lead one onto an online degree that will make a true difference in their lives. A free online degree course is just waiting for those who make that one mouse click change everything.best online colleges: Top Colleges Online
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