One of the bellweather campaign promises of one of this year’s US presidential candidates is free college education. Well you don’t have to wait for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to win to get a free ivy league education.
At least five of them offer some of their courses, many taught by distinguished and notable professors, for no cost online. A few started the offerings as part of a program to expand education access. Others are interested in sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas broadly. Here they are:
Yale University – Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The subjects are science, history, the arts and can also be viewed through YouTube and iTunes.
Harvard University – The prestigious university allows anyone to brows its free or low-cost online courses via its Harvard University’s Digital Learning Portal. Classes can also be accessed on iTunesU.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) -This Ivy offers almost all of all MIT’s course content via its web-based portal MIT OpenCourseWare. The site focuses on scientific and technical courses, including architecture, engineering, biology and physics. Interesting offerings include a Lego robotics course which teaches the principals of mechanical systems and engineering using the popular toy and a chemistry course that focuses on sports.
Stanford– On the left coast, StanfordOnline is available to offer loads of courses from all disciplines. It too is on iTunesU, where it offers a number of free lectures available for download in MP3 format.
Columbia University – Although it isn’t currently maintained, the University was once involved with an open source class project. The courses are still available and can be accessed online. Journalism, business and finance, medicine and public policy and more are available.
Bonus.
Not an ivy but still an elite school, Tufts University has medical courses and other classes via its Open Courseware site.
Speaking of FREE online education, our senior editor JJ has launched an online training platform aimed at teaching blogging and digital publishing. It is the Digital Publishing Academy and the first four classes are being offered FREE! Sweet! Consider enrolling!
