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How to Get a Harvard Education for Free

By Tracy Farnsworth,

5 hours ago

Harvard’s annual tuition is almost $83,000 (with room and board) as of 2024/2025. That leaves people wondering how to get a Harvard education for free. Rest assured, Harvard offers free online classes to anyone looking to expand their knowledge. You don’t get a degree or credit for the classes, but you learn new things. The course selection changes as courses expire and go into the archives, which helps keep the offerings fresh. Here, we’ve pulled a random selection of free classes and listed them alphabetically. (Also, check out “ 20 Free MIT Classes Anyone Can Take .”)

Building Personal Resilience: Managing Anxiety and Mental Health

Master the use of five core skills to better manage anxiety, emotional stress, and personal fears to keep them from overwhelming you. Through the free course, you’ll learn about Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CTB) to build your own “Charge Up Plan.”

Length: 6 weeks
Time Commitment: 1 to 2 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Contract Law: From Trust to Promise to Contract

Take a closer look at the legalities of a contract and the mistakes that are often made while creating a contract. The free Harvard course covers how to form and enforce a contract. Plus, dive into the different ways to remedy a breach of contract.

Length: 8 weeks
Time Commitment: 3 to 6 hours per week
Level: Intermediate

CS50 for Lawyers

Law and technology meet in this Harvard computer science program. Learn about cybersecurity and cryptography. Explore some of the more common programming languages (Python and SQL) and computational thinking. You also learn how technology can impact your clients.

Length: 10 weeks
Time Commitment: 3o 6 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Data Solutions for Social and Economic Disparities

In this free Harvard class that’s ideal for new teachers, learn how social status and its factors impact educational outcomes. The course covers historical and current statistics regarding race and gender and how that impacts upward mobility.

Length: 4 weeks
Time Commitment: 1 to 2 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies

Have you ever considered running your own business? Discover some of the different opportunities in emerging markets. Learn how you can take a common problem existing in the world and use that to become an entrepreneur.

Length: 6 weeks
Time Commitment: 3 to 5 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Fat Chance: Probability from the Ground Up

Gain a basic understanding of probability and statistics to learn how to use basic counting skills to solve problems where exact values are unclear. If you have a handful of dice, what are the odds you’ll get the same number when you roll them across a table? You’ll learn about binomial coefficients, and multinomials and then use your insights to explore situations like The Monty Hall Problem and The Gambler’s Ruin.

Length: 7 weeks
Time Commitment: 3 to 5 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Food Fermentation: The Science of Cooking with Microbes

Over 14 weeks, this course explores the history and cultural importance of fermented foods. You’ll learn how to safely ferment and preserve the foods you buy and use fermented items like sourdough starters to make safe, delicious food items like beer or mead, bread, and tempeh.

Length: 14 weeks
Time Commitment: 2 to 3 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Using Python

By now, most people have been introduced to AI in some form, whether it’s through services like an AI customer service chatbot. In this course, you learn about AI and the design of intelligent systems, machine learning, and the use of AI in Python. You also explore graph search algorithms and optimization.

Length: 7 weeks
Time Commitment: 10 to 30 hours per week
Level: Intermediate

Introduction to Computer Science

Explore the basics of different programming languages including C, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Python, and SQL. And, delve into important topics like computer and website security, resource management, and data structures. This free online college course also covers problem-solving and developing a mindset to think in algorithms. Follow it with one of the following programming classes for greater insight.

Length: 11 weeks
Time Commitment: 10 to 20 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Introduction to Cybersecurity

This is one of the most important Harvard courses for free. It’s meant for anyone interested in protecting their personal information, computers, and mobile devices from hackers, phishing, malware, viruses, and other threats. Learn how to protect your information through the use of passwords, multi-factor authentication, and more.

Length: 5 weeks
Time Commitment: 2 to 6 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Introduction to Family Engagement in Education

In some areas, school is treated like free daycare. It’s a place where kids go during the day while parents work. For a child to gain a successful education, there needs to be a strong partnership between parents and teachers. That’s what this course offers. It discusses the value of engagement in education and how to build strong teacher-parent relationships.

Length: 6 weeks
Time Commitment: 2 to 4 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Introduction to Programming with Scratch

Scratch is a unique programming language where programmers drag and drop blocks instead of typing out strings of text. Throughout this class, students learn the basics of computer programming for web development and then learn Scratch to develop simple animations.

Length: 3 weeks
Time Commitment: N/A
Level: Introductory

Managing Happiness

You alone have the power to make yourself happy. In this course, you’ll learn how to identify the behaviors and emotions that impact your happiness and break those bad habits. You’ll learn how to set short-term and long-term goals that help lead you on a path to becoming happy.

Length: 6 weeks
Time Commitment: 2 to 3 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Masterpieces of World Literature

Here’s a course for the avid reader. Explore the world’s best writers and the impact their stories have on the world. Some of the books you’ll read are Jorge Luis Borges’ Ficciones, Homer’s The Odyssey, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, and Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman.

Length: N/A
Time Commitment: 5 to 7 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking

This free online college course doesn’t have a timeframe in which you should complete it. It’s one of the best options if you’re short on time and have ever wanted to learn how to effectively share your opinion. By the end of it, you’ll be able to write a persuasive opinion-based piece and give short speeches as you debate topics with others.

Length: N/A
Time Commitment: 2 to 3 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science

Whether you’re baking, grilling, or slow cooking, cooking involves science. Top chefs go over historic and modern cooking methods that use principles from chemistry and physics to create the finished product. You’ll learn how to make mayonnaise, homemade bread, ice cream, and more.

Length: 16 weeks
Time Commitment: 2 to 3 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Super-Earths and Life

This course takes a closer look at how life came to be on Earth and whether there is life out there on other planets or in other galaxies. Students explore what makes a planet livable and how we can find suitable planets to live on if Earth is no longer viable.

Length: 7 weeks
Time Commitment: 5 to 8 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Web Programming with Python and JavaScript

In this free Harvard course, you learn many important programming languages for web development. CSS, Django, Git, HTML, JavaScript, Python, and SQL are all covered. Over the three months, students learn how to write and use APIs and interactive UIs. Cloud services are also covered.

Length: 12 weeks
Time Commitment: 6 to 9 hours per week
Level: Intermediate

We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy

Over the decades, people’s understanding of the Constitution and democratic society have become skewed. Go back to the foundations of the U.S. democracy. Explore what happens when your civil liberties and rights are no longer protected as it was meant and how to find your voice in your community, state, and nation while also respecting others’ opinions and insights.

Length: 7 weeks
Time Commitment: 1 to 5 hours per week
Level: Introductory

Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories

With a female vice president who is running for president, this free Harvard course is timely. The course explores the importance of women in American history, the fight for women’s rights, and the battle against discrimination in the workplace and daily life.

Length: N/A
Time Commitment: 2 to 3 hours per week
Level: Introductory

The above courses are how to get a Harvard education for free, but you do not gain any certification. There is a less expensive option where you pay $299 to take the courses and get a certificate at the end. While you will pay that certification fee, it’s cheaper than the full Harvard tuition. Consider pairing other free Harvard courses with a new career in one of the “ Industries Benefitting From Climate Change .”