15 Free Websites for Online Learning (2025)

The internet has a lot to offer for people who seek education in any form – master’s degree program, computer science classes, K-12 curriculum, study programs and more. From databases to a small library of documents, opportunities for online learning are expanding and endless. The best part of it is that these sites are free.

E-learning has been widely adopted by the education sector and is becoming increasingly popular. Tech giant IBM has saved approximately $200 million after shifting to e-learning. Not only is this form of learning cost-effective, but also enhances students’ learning. Studies suggest that participants learn nearly 5 times more material without increasing time spent in training. This method has increased retention rates by 25-60% compared to a traditional classroom setting.

Excellent free education awaits everyone in these 15 sites:

1. Coursera

This website partners with universities and organizations around the world, covering a wide variety of topics and perspectives. It is a known powerful tool for free online education. It features courses from many top universities and museums.

Thus, the site gives a wide range of in-depth courses. It is useful if you want to study different topics or gain courses from different schools and groups.

2. Khan Academy

Khan Academy partners with post-secondary schools, Khan Academy offer a user-friendly and well-organized interface. It offers depth on different subjects. It offers an easy way to keep track of your learning goals.

3. Open Culture Online Courses

Struggling to find the material you’re looking for? This page has 1000 lectures, videos, and podcasts from universities around the world. Materials featured on this site are found only on private sites of universities, all easy to browse categories. Without having to visit the university’s own site, you can already find hundreds of university courses. Mostly, this contains courses from Australia, Wales, and England and state universities in the US.

4. Udemy

Similar to concept of Courseera, users can build custom courses from lessons. It works with top professors and schools with emphasis on top content. However, this website mixes free and paid content.

5. Academic Earth

This website brings together top notch courses from different sources and focus on wide variety of subjects. Academic Earth has a list of courses by subject and school. It might be easier to find the specific course you’re looking for.

6. edX

This is also another good option if you’re looking for a website with a great range of topics from different schools and universities.

7. Alison

Alison’s focus is mainly on business, health and technology and language learning courses. It gives certification in some areas. It also offers school curriculum courses.

8. iTunesU Free Courses

For free online education, iTunesU may be the most convenient site for Apple users. It syncs with your iPad and iPhone. Users download the iTunesU app. It’s convenient because users can search learning materials in different ways (which includes genre and topic). Courses are a mix of free podcasts or videos (free and paid).It doesn’t include courses on a wide scope.

9. Stanford Online

For all online offerings at Stanford University, this website is your source. It offers self-paced and session based courses. However, while Coursera features some courses from Stanford, many classes are only available via other hosts. Some courses require iTunes, but most are completed in your web browser. Stanford Online is a great site for high quality courses, though the topics are somewhat limited compared to sites partnered with more than one school.

10. Harvard Extension

This website features free online courses from Harvard. It allows you to search for courses according to a professional certificate. Thus, it makes it an easier option if your goal is to have a certification.

11. Open Yale Courses

This website is pretty much the same as Harvard Extension and Stanford Online. It offers courses from Yale. However, the site is limited with topics. It’s a great option if you’re looking for top-notch courses but you are more of a visual learner because it has a lot of videos.

12. UC Berkeley Class Central

UC Berkeley has a variety of free online education options. Compared to the schools mentioned above, this school has slightly fewer courses. However, it includes supplementary lectures and webcasts, making it easy to keep up the topics.

13. MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT offers a variety of free courses. It has a comparable number of courses to the schools above, plus includes very in-depth course materials on the subjects available.

14. Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative

Thought it may be comparable to other schools on the list. It offers a smaller range of topics with in-depth materials.

15. Codecademy

It is a website dedicated to coding lessons. Where other coding sites follow an example/practice session workflow, Codecademy includes a live practice window. You can practice coding while still viewing the lesson material. The courses are easy to follow and the website is organized.

Do you know any other sites that offer free education? Share them in the comments below.

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Comment (1)

Hey there! This is another free educational website that might help everyone futurelearn.com
By Dunya Alqahtani (Apr, 2017) | Reply