Before you start trying to find free online business courses, make sure your goals are clear.
Do you want to:
- Advance your career?
- Progress to further studies?
- Start your own business?
- Change careers?
- Access a structured course with assignments, or a series of lectures?
Of course, you might just be curious. Answering these questions will help you choose the best course for you.
Types of free online courses
When you start looking, you’ll find two main categories of online courses:
- Accredited courses; and
- Non-accredited courses.
Accredited courses
Many universities offer their courses online, often through platforms like Coursera and EdX. These are a great choice if you enjoy university-style courses or want to work towards an accredited certificate.
You can audit most courses for free – some even let you submit free peer-marked assignments – but you’ll generally need to pay if you want a certificate.
Yale provides open access to a range of courses for free on their Open Yale Courses site. Unlike most similar sites, you don’t even need to register. You can just pick a course and get started!
For something closer to home, the Open University offers OpenLearn: free online courses with no registration required. Their helpfully named ‘Business and Money’ category has courses ranging from management and marketing to accounting and problem solving, and it’s easy to filter by topic, level and length.
OpenLearn doesn’t offer certificates, but if you create an account, you can download a free Statement of Participation.
For a more practical take, Alison offers an impressive range of free accredited business courses. If you want a hard-copy of your certificate, you’ll need to pay, but if you’re happy downloading it, the whole process is free.
The Great Courses Plus is a subscription service that gives you unlimited access to the Great Courses’ extensive library of on-demand video courses. It’s technically not free, but you can get a one-month free trial when you sign up. If you can spend 30 minutes a day on the site, that’s long enough to get through at least one course in a month.
If you’d rather give it a try without signing up, try The Great Courses Daily. It offers access to a changing selection of Great Courses lectures, and often has business courses in the mix.
If none of those work for you, check out the UK National Careers Service recommendations for more free, good-quality courses.
Non-accredited courses
If you’re planning to start your own business, you’re working on continuous professional development or you’re just curious, non-accredited courses might be a better option. Udemy and Skillshare are the best-known course aggregator platforms for non-accredited courses.
Non-accredited doesn’t mean unworthy – there are some fantastic teachers on both platforms. However, the trick is finding the free courses.
On Udemy, start on the ‘Free Courses‘ page and look for business-related courses. The range of free courses changes regularly, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for, check back later.
As a subscription platform, Skillshare isn’t free; however, they have a wide range of free business courses. If they’re not quite what you’re looking for, use your free trial to watch the paid courses that grab your interest.
Course aggregator platforms have two main advantages:
- The average quality is better; and
- You can see other students’ reviews.
Courses by random people on their own websites can be awesome – or they can be a waste of time. At worst, they can even cause a security issue on your device. Always check reviews before downloading anything – including software to run free online courses.
Tips and tricks
You can get a long way with free online business courses, but don’t rule out paying if your perfect course isn’t free. If you need the qualification for work, paying for a formal certificate can be worth it.
In the UK, the National Careers Service can tell you if you’re eligible for grants or assistance. For formal qualifications, accreditation by the Open & Distance Learning Quality Council guarantees good quality service.
If the business course is in real-time rather than self-paced, make sure the timing works for you. And, most importantly, don’t forget to start a ‘To Learn’ list before you start browsing – there are so many fascinating courses out there that you’ll certainly end up finding more than one that grabs you!
