Free College Courses

I took an accounting class at night last semester. Just to learn and for “fun.” You can learn most of what you need to know about accounting as an investor by reading books like The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham or the accounting portions of The Essays of Warren Buffett (you could also get Buffett’s essays for free here). I thought I’d gain some valuable insight by learning exactly how to prepare the statements. I actually did learn some things, too. It cost me $800 though. $800 for something that didn’t advance my career or give me credit toward a degree. I guess technically I did get credit toward a degree, if I wanted to go back to school and get an undergraduate degree in accounting. I really just paid $800 for the opportunity to learn something I’ll seldom use over the remainder of my life.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way. The fact of the matter is, there are ways to take classes for free, whether you would like to pursue a degree or just want to learn. That’s the first thing you have to decide, because, while there are ways to get a subsidized degree (such as this), the focus of this post is for the person simply seeking knowledge.

The first, and perhaps my favorite way to get free college courses is through programs where you can audit a college course for free online. Of course, the quality of the online content varies from program to program, and course to course. Some courses are just a reading list, while others have a cache of audio lectures, lecture notes, plus homework and quiz answers. For instance, MIT offers around 1800 courses through their program, MIT Open Courseware. When I have more time (if that ever happens), this is a resource I will definitely take advantage of. Berkeley, Stanford, NYU and Notre Dame are just a few of the other Universities offering course work online for free. There are lots of resources out there for whatever you want to learn.

Another option, if you live near a university, and your motive is only to learn, you might think about contacting the professor teaching the course and see if he’ll let you sit in on the course. You might have to buy the book to get anything out of it, but spending $80 is better than spending $800. The professor might say no, but if there are open seats, he or she might appreciate the fact that someone wants to learn for the sake of learning.

Finally, as an alternative to taking courses you could just get the textbook and read it. Or, better yet, get a textbook they aren’t using for courses anymore on the cheap and read that. A cool idea might be to seek out other people interested in learning the same thing, and break it up into chapters. Each person could take a turn teaching a chapter, socratic method style. It stimulates discussion and you get a more typical college experience. Come to think of it, you could do that with the online resources as well. Essentially it’s a book club with an academic focus. So that’s that. If you have any other ideas of how to get the equivalent of free (or cheap) courses, email me or leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading.