As necessary as education is to our modern workforce, a traditional degree has become prohibitively expensive. College costs have tripled in less than 20 years. This incredible cost burden leaves students struggling to pay rent, unable to afford a healthy diet, and trapped in debt for decades. Despite sacrificing so much for their education, 73% of college graduates are unable to find a job related to their degree. So why did millions of students give up so much to receive so little in return? Few realize a free online college education is available online, and that there are tools available to ease their search.
More than half of US Gen-Zs degrees are unnecessary for success. Companies as well-recognized as Tesla are beginning to agree with them. 81% of people believe education is shifting to autodidacticism or self-taught methods. Those who are self-taught, in whole or part, have good company. Melanie Klein, the founder of children’s psychology, achieved her landmark breakthroughs without any formal higher education to speak of. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, never graduated college. Today, the internet brings self-education to everyone with a laptop and internet access.
A College Level Education Is Available Online
Finding a college level education for free online is far easier than most people realize. Some of the most expensive universities also offer a great selection of free courses online. To search course offerings across several universities with ease, aggregate sites like edX and Coursera offer curated listings. College websites aren’t the only place you can visit in pursuit of self-taught college education, however. The courses taught by experts are available on Khan Academy, Udemy, and TEDEd at no cost. Another alternative is MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses. Perhaps the most popular offering from this category is LinkedIn Learning, which allows users who complete their open-enrollment courses to post their achievements on their professional profiles. For those who don’t flourish in the traditional classroom environment, Codecademy and SkillShare teach using interactivity and project completion.
With so many options out there, obtaining the educational equivalent of a bachelor’s degree is easier than ever. The trick is finishing it well. You want to present your educational attainments in a way peers and employers understand. To do that, you need to retain what you learn. Here are a few tips to keep yourself on course: carve out a study schedule in your busy life and stick to it. Get an accountability buddy and set realistic goals together. Most importantly, remind yourself why you want to learn in the first place. Motivation is the key to completion.
Online Education Can Benefit People of All Ages
Many see the pursuit of education as the domain of young adults, but you can benefit from free online college education at any age. As many as 78% of people worldwide believe they need more training in skills these platforms can provide. When companies modernize their methods, employees feel the pressure to keep up or lose their job. That’s why 42% of Americans use free online resources to retrain for work. Some popular fields include coding development, marketing, and data analysis.
Source: CollegeCliffs
