Top 10 Free University Courses that are Better Than Paid Degrees

Today, we are going to be breaking down 10 free university courses that are better than paid degrees in many cases. We are going to be blowing the lid off of one of the biggest scams in modern society, spending $100,000 and four years of your life on a degree that’s worth less than what you can get for free online right now.

We are not going to sugarcoat this. Higher education has become a racket that’s leaving students drowning in debt while teaching them outdated skills that employers don’t even want.

But here’s the thing that nobody’s telling you. Some of the world’s best universities are giving away their most valuable courses completely free. No catches, no free trials that need your credit card, no hidden fees, just pure high quality education that can actually help you get hired.

We will reveal to you exactly why each one of these beats the hell out of a lot of those expensive degrees. If this guide saves just one person from wasting their money on a useless degree, then it’s worth it. Let’s get into it now.

MIT’s Introduction to Computer Science

First up, we’ve got MIT’s introduction to computer science through their open courseware platform. Now here’s the deal. First of all, MIT is for absolute brainiacs and they charge $50,000 a year to attend in person. But they’re giving away the exact same course materials, lectures and assignments completely free online.

This is the real deal. The same foundational CS knowledge that powers the tech industry. And you’ll learn algorithms, data structures and computational thinking exactly how MIT students learn. And yes, you’re not going to get the teacher to give you feedback, but let’s be real. You’d likely be in a classroom of 100 people anyway, so you’re not going to get that much one on one time in the first place.

The big difference? You’re not dropping $200,000 for the privilege. You’re going to be learning at your own pace, focusing on material that actually matters for your career. Employers in tech care way more about what you can do than where your degree is from. So show them the projects that you built from this course and they won’t give a damn if you never step foot on a college campus.

Now this isn’t just for coding nerds either. Understanding computational thinking is valuable across pretty much every industry now. And it’s really the foundation of what you need before specializing in anything tech related from AI to game development.

So opportunity score, we sre going to give this one a solid 9 out of 10. The only thing you’re missing here is networking and of course a fancy piece of paper.

Open Source Society University

Alright, course number two is Open Source Society University, specifically CS Path. Now most people have never heard of this. It’s the Open Source Society University’s computer science path on GitHub. And this isn’t just one free course.

It’s an entire computer science degree curriculum built from the best free courses available online. So we’re talking a complete education from intro programming all the way through advanced algorithms. And this may be better than most paid CS degrees because it’s constantly updated by actual developers who know what skills are needed in the real world. Not academics who used to be a computer programmer 20 years ago.

Right, when you pay $50,000 for a CS degree, half of what you’re learning will be outdated by graduation. With OSSU, you’re getting cutting edge material that evolves with the industry.

Now the other massive advantage is that you can skip all the general education requirements and other classes that most universities make you take just to squeeze more tuition out of you. Right, every minute you spend learning is directly relevant to becoming a better developer. And that’s the way it should be.

So we are going to give this one a 9.5 out of 10 opportunity score. Obviously, computer science development is not going to be for everyone, but this one is super valuable.

Stanford Machine Learning

Course number three is going to be Stanford Machine Learning. And this one is actually on YouTube. Now this is taught by the absolute giga Chad Andrew Ng. He is one of the founders of Coursera and he’s also one of the world’s leading machine learning experts.

So he is literally on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and all that giga brain stuff that you hear about. So he isn’t just some random professor, right? He’s one of the pioneers in this industry and he’s led AI teams at freaking Google.

Now most boot camps and even many university courses will teach you how to use machine learning libraries, but they skip over the mathematical foundations that help you actually understand what’s happeningunder the hood. And that’s where this course absolutely demolishes paid alternatives.

Andrew Ng breaks down complex mathematical concepts in a way that’s digestible without dumbing it down. And you’ll understand the why behind machine learning, not just the how. And lets be crystal clear here, this deep understanding is what separates the $60,000 a year jobs from the $200,000 a year jobs, right? Anybody can import a library and call a function.

The real value is knowing which algorithms to use and how to optimize them. So yeah, we gonna give this one a 9 out of 10 opportunity score. The only downside is you will need to supplement this with more recent developments in deep learning, but the foundations here are rock solid.

Yale Financial Markets Course

All right, the next course is the Yale Financial Markets course. So this is gonna be a little bit of change of pace. We’re gonna be talking about finance and economics, not tech. Now this is available completely free on YouTube and it’s taught by a Nobel Prize winning economist, Robert Shiller. And this is a perfect example of how free online education can actually be better than expensive alternatives.

When you take a finance course at most universities, you’re learning from professors who might be academically brilliant, but have zero real world experience. Robert Shiller, on the other hand, not only predicted the 2008 housing crisis, but he spent decades studying market behavior. And he brings insights that go far beyond textbook finance.

The good thing about this course is that it doesn’t just teach you the mechanics of financial markets. It gives you a deep understanding of why markets behave the way they do. And the psychological element is something that’s usually missing from traditional finance or economic education.

So whether you’re looking to work in finance or you just wanna manage your own investments better, this course gives you an Ivy League quality education without the Ivy League price tag.

So we gonna give this one an eight out of 10. And that’s a very solid score.

Free Code Camp

Now, this guide would not be complete without this one on this list. This is an absolutely epic organization and that is Free Code Camp. And it’s their full curriculum. Now, Free Code Camp or FCC offers a completely free, comprehensive coding education that covers everything from basic HTML to advanced machine learning. But what makes it special is that it’s entirely prproject-based

You don’t just learn the concepts, you immediately apply them by building real projects. And by the time you finish their curriculum, you’ll have a portfolio of over 30 projects that demonstrate your skills to employers. Most $10,000 boot camps are probably just repackaging the same information that you can get for free on Free Code Camp, but just with a fancy marketing department and a hefty price tag.

Now, the other killer advantage of Free Code Camp is the built-in community. You’ve got forums, chat rooms, and meetups where you can connect with other learners. Sometimes you can find mentors and you can even get job referrals. Now, the proof is in the pudding.

Free Code Camp has helped thousands of people land developer jobs at companies like Microsoft, Google, Spotify, et cetera. And their curriculum is constantly updated to reflect current industry needs. These guys are freaking awesome. You can study a ton of stuff on Free Code Camp. They rely on donations and funding.

Yale’s Introduction to Psychology

You might be thinking what the hell does psychology have to do with getting a job? Psychology is a super valuable skill. Understanding human behavior is a superpower in virtually any field, whether you’re in marketing, management, design, or customer service, knowing what drives people’s decisions gives you a massive advantage.

Yale’s course covers everything from cognitive development and brain structure to social psychology and mental health. But unlike many psychology programs that focus purely on theory, this course consistently connects concepts to real-world applications. And what makes this better than paid alternatives is that you’re getting one of the world’s best psychology courses without the fluff that universities add to stretch it into a four-year degree.

So we gonna give this one an opportunity score of 7.5 out of 10. It’s not directly vocational, right? It’s not gonna directly get you a job, but it’s gonna be useful in almost any career path or any career field.

MIT Sloan School of Management Lectures

All right, next is going to be MIT Sloan School of Management lectures. And this is available for free through MIT OpenCourseWare. So an MBA from MIT will set you back about $140,000 in tuition alone, not counting the two years of lost income and the extra costs associated with it. But guess what? Many of their best business courses are available completely free online. And these lectures

Cover everything from entrepreneurship and marketing to finance and operations management. So you’re getting insights from the same professors who teach in one of the world’s top business schools. And what makes this better than paid alternatives is that most business degrees are padded with unnecessary courses and outdated case studies. And with MIT’s

OpenCourseWare, you can focus specifically on topics that are relevant to your career goals. Now the other advantage is that you can apply what you’re learning to real business situations immediately rather than spending years in a classroom before putting knowledge into practice.

Obviously this one would be better for the business-minded people and specifically people who want to be in either executive positions or management positions.

Harvard’s Legendary CS50 Curriculum

All right, next is going to be Harvard’s legendary CS50 curriculum. And there’s a lot of different things they cover. They cover computer science in general, and they also cover things like game development. And this is available on their website and also on YouTube. So just as an example, the introduction to game development available free on YouTube is super valuable.

Now believe it or not, the gaming industry is now bigger than the film and music industries combined. And it generates over $180 billion a year annually. Yet most computer science programs barely touch on game development. They treat it as a niche rather than a major tech sector. And all of the Harvard CS50 courses, they’re all amazing. But this course specifically teaches you game development fundamentals using industry standard tools like Unity and Lua.

So you’ll learn everything from basic 2D games, which by the way, those can sell like crazy. Think Angry Birds to more complex 3D environments. And what makes this better than specialized game development schools that charge $30,000 a year is you’re learning the fundamentals that transfer across platforms and engines, not just specific tools that might be outdated in a few years.

Plus the projects you build throughout the course can go straight into your portfolio, giving you tangible evidence of your skills when applying for jobs. So yeah, this one’s pretty niche, but Harvard CS50 in general is amazing. We are going to give it a 9 out of 10.

Web Security Academy

Next is going to be the Web Security Academy. And this one is by Port Swigger, which is a little bit of a weird name. But these are the people who created the Burp Suite, which is the industry standard web security testing tool. And cybersecurity is one of the few fields with basically zero unemployment.

If you have cybersecurity skills, if you’re good at cybersecurity skills, you can be the most like useless person in the world and you’re still going to get a job. You could literally be like the worst employee ever and they’re still going to employ you. Companies are literally desperate for security professionals and the skill gap is only widening. And most university cybersecurity programs are hopelessly outdated.

They’re teaching you concepts that were relevant like a decade ago, but they don’t address modern threats. But Port Swigger’s Web Security Academy, which is a bit of a mouthful, is different. It’s created by actual security professionals who are on the front lines of detecting and preventing web vulnerabilities every single day.

The course includes interactive labs that simulate real world scenarios, allowing you to practice identifying and exploiting security flaws in a safe environment. And you’ll learn everything from SQL injection and cross site scripting to authentication vulnerabilities and access control.

So what makes this better than paid alternatives? Well, one thing is you get to dip your toe in cybersecurity and see if it’s for you. But also it’s the hands on nature of the training.

You’re not just reading about security concepts. You’re actively practicing the skills that employers are looking for. Cybersecurity professionals are in extremely high demand, and this course provides practical skills that many degree programs lack.

Khan Academy

All right, next is an absolute OG. 90% of people reading this guide know about them. They are some of the goats of free online education. They’re absolutely amazing. They’ve probably helped just about everybody here study for like a math test or a chemistry test or a biology test at some point in the past. And this guide would not be complete without them.

Khan Academy does just about everything. They do mathematics, chemistry, biology. They even touch on computer science and all kinds of different stuff like that. Now, of course, they’re available for free on YouTube. They also have a website.

Conclusion

One thing a lot of these courses do lack is an actual certificate at the end and then also some brand name awareness and other help in actually landing the job. That is something that, for instance, the Google Career Certificates actually fill in pretty well. And those are very affordable, about $49 a month.