Audit a College Course Free Online

published 30 June 2007

Ever wish you could go back to school? Now you can, without spending a dime. Colleges and universities worldwide are posting course materials on the Internet. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which pioneered the so-called open-courseware movement, will have at least some teaching materials online from all 1,800 undergraduate and graduate courses this fall. Other schools with a free online presence include the University of California at Irvine, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Notre Dame, Michigan State University and Harvard Law School.

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Row 0 - Cell 0	Best Deals on Student Loans
Row 1 - Cell 0	Best Values in Private Colleges
Row 2 - Cell 0	Best Values in Public Colleges

But access to materials is just that. You don't get credit toward a degree, nor are you able to interact with professors or other students. And the utility of what you can access varies greatly. You might get little more than a syllabus and reading list for one course, but another might have a full complement of lectures -- via audio podcasts or video webcasts -- complete with exams and answer keys. What is posted is often left to the teachers.

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Anne Kates Smith brings Wall Street to Main Street, with decades of experience covering investments and personal finance for real people trying to navigate fast-changing markets, preserve financial security or plan for the future. She oversees the magazine's investing coverage, authors Kiplinger’s biannual stock-market outlooks and writes the "Your Mind and Your Money" column, a take on behavioral finance and how investors can get out of their own way. Smith began her journalism career as a writer and columnist for USA Today. Prior to joining Kiplinger, she was a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report and a contributing columnist for TheStreet. Smith is a graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., the third-oldest college in America.