How to Get a College Degree Without Going to College?

Recently, I wrote an article entitled 2 Ways to Get a College Education Without Going to College. Since then, people have told me about even more resources for this sort of thing, so I thought I’d tell you about them.

• Coursera
• Udacity

But, is it possible to get a college degree without going to college?

You will not be able to get the college degree by taking courses from Coursera and Udacity. You get the same quality instructions that you get while attending the same course offered by the same professors in the classroom settings.

Coursera

Coursera is much like edX, in that it brings together prestigious universities in the US to provide college courses online. Many of the courses focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) classes, which is a rapidly growing sector in the US.

All you have to do is sign up and you can start taking classes and when you finish them, you get a certificate of completion. There are five classes on Coursera that The American Council of Education have approved for college credit.

These classes have final exams that are proctored and cost between $60-$90 USD. While that may seem steep, in relation to taking actual college courses, it’s very, very cheap. I would highly recommend you check it out.

Udacity

Udacity is yet another free online courseware provider, but with an interesting twist.

It was created by two Stanford professors who saw higher education as broken and decided to put their classes on artificial intelligence online for all to use.

This has now evolved into a website where users can watch videos on different STEM topics and complete quizzes and “learn by doing” exercises to receive a certificate of completion.

There are a variety of videos on the site, anything from College Algebra up to things like Intro to Parallel Programming and more.

This site, and Coursera up above, could be a huge help to students who want to study STEM majors here in the US. You’ll get a chance to experience the teaching style of American professors all while learning about science and technology (and saving a lot of money).

 

Of-course there’s UDEMY as well.