[2024] The Ultimate List of 250 Top FREE Coursera Courses Ever — Class Central

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Coursera has established itself as one of the leading platforms for online education, especially during the surge of interest in MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Currently, it offers an extensive portfolio of over 12,000 courses, a significant increase from last year’s count of more than 8,000.

The company capitalized on the rise of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to its public debut in March 2021. An analysis by Class Central of Coursera’s IPO revealed the business generated $293.5 million in revenue for 2020, which grew to $415.3 million in 2021. For an in-depth look at Coursera’s financial health, refer to our comprehensive analysis: A Deep Dive Into Coursera’s Financials.

In 2022, Coursera’s stock saw a decline of 20% attributed to a decrease in degree enrollments across the United States, in addition to challenges faced in its consumer and enterprise sectors in Europe.

However, 2023 marked a turnaround for Coursera, bringing in 24 million new learners and a revenue boost of 21%, reaching $636 million. This growth was largely driven by its consumer offerings and partnerships within the technology sector. Challenges arose in early 2024 when the company downgraded its revenue forecasts and saw its stock price diminish significantly. To counteract these difficulties, Coursera is prioritizing the expansion of its artificial intelligence-related content and proprietary learning resources as a pathway for future growth.

Initially, Coursera provided all its courses free of charge, but as the platform evolved, it shifted its focus to monetization. Consequently, graded assignments and certificate options were hidden behind a paywall, transforming the courses into a “free to audit” model.

Despite this shift, a recent study by Class Central found that Coursera still hosts around 1,700 completely free courses (excluding certifications). For those seeking guidance on how to enroll in courses for free, our article “How to Sign up for Coursera Courses for Free” offers helpful tips.

250 Most Popular FREE Coursera Courses

Below is a summary of the 250 most popular free courses available on Coursera, ranked by the total number of enrollments:

• Course enrollments range between 211,000 to 4.7 million, with 22 courses surpassing one million enrollments.
• The collective total exceeds 130 million enrollments, averaging around 522,000 per course.
• Out of these, 230 courses are in English, 16 in Spanish, 3 in Portuguese, and 1 in French.
• These courses have garnered 114,000 reviews on Class Central, resulting in an average rating of 4.2 out of 5.
• Of the total courses, 146 are categorized as beginner-level, while 31 fall under intermediate.

Highlighted courses include:

• The Science of Well-Being from Yale University ★★★★★(29)
• Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects from Deep Teaching Solutions ★★★★★(25744)
• Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) from University of Michigan ★★★★★(44319)
• Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere from Google ★★★★★(4)
• English for Career Development from University of Pennsylvania ★★★★★(22)
• Foundations of Project Management from Google ★★★★☆(1)
• Financial Markets from Yale University ★★★★☆(34)
• Technical Support Fundamentals from Google ★★★☆☆(9)
• Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills from University of Michigan ★★★★★(219)
• AI For Everyone from DeepLearning.AI ★★★★★(6)

This list illustrates not only the diversity of courses offered by Coursera but also the platform’s commitment to making quality education accessible to a global audience.

Source
www.classcentral.com