Free online learning college courses are, surprisingly, available in a wide variety of subjects at a number of institutions, and they’re a great way for people with disabilities to begin or continue their learning. High school students can prepare for those tricky advanced placement (AP) tests, too.

You won’t come away with a certificate or degree, and you cannot get college credit, but taking some free online classes is a great way to find out if you enjoy a particular field. Maybe there’s a hole in your resume that needs to be filled, or you notice that a lot of employers are looking for a certain skill, but you don’t have the time, money, or mobility for a traditional college class.

Top Universities Represented Online
Most of these free online classes from prestigious institutions don’t require registration. Just link to the site and browse through the extensive course offerings. Become an expert in art history, or learn computer programming. There’s a world of knowledge right at your keyboard.

Online classes allow you to study at your own pace, in your own time. Whether you prefer to study at three in the morning or over your lunch hour, it doesn’t matter. What is important is that you’re self-motivated and able to work through difficult spots in your learning.

Get Started Today
Although you won’t have classmates or a teacher to lean on for help and advice when you make use of these free online classes, the internet delivers a world of assistance in the form of chatrooms and information should you get stuck. Get started now! What have you got to lose?

1.    Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Access free lecture notes, tests and videos from MIT in almost every course the university offers. The institute’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) is available around the world, and covers subject matter at the undergraduate and graduate level.

From aeronautics to writing, nuclear physics to foreign languages, you have access to more than 1,900 courses. Complete the same projects and assignments as MIT students, many of which are available in an audio/visual format.

2.     The Open University  - The British OpenLearn program has content from the undergraduate to postgraduate level with 5,400 learning hours of content  in their LearningSpace and 8100 hours in LabSpace. Content includes self-assessment tools, collaboration forums and a personalized learning experience.

Their site promises “a number of learning support and social networking tools to replicate the different informal modes of communication and learning that happen on a traditional campus.”

3.    Open Educational Resources  - More than 25,000 subject areas are covered in arts, business, humanities, mathematics and statistics, science and technology, and the social sciences. This broad-range site serves as a compendium of learner and teacher knowledge, including tutorials on teaching methods and objectives.

All of the course offerings are sorted by level and include audio lectures, activities, labs, graphic materials, assignments and more.

4.    Academic Earth - A little different than the offerings listed above, Academic Earth is made up exclusively of online video content from a group of exclusive universities. Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA and Yale are all represented, and users can rate the lectures. Subjects range from AP test preparation to religious studies.

5.     Free Education on the Internet  - Choose from more than 300 classes, including text, quizzes, practice activities and coursework.