Coursera has fully free courses, but a free certificate is not part of them. On the courses listed here you can enrol with the Full Course, No Certificate option and finish every module at no cost; the shareable certificate, where one exists, is sold separately, and some courses award none. Here is how the free option works and which Coursera courses qualify.
Coursera free courses: preview, audit and Full Course, No Certificate
Three things get called a free Coursera course, and only one of them is. The first is the free preview that most courses now offer: the first module is open, with its graded assignments and Coursera's Coach feature, and everything after it is paid, either per course or through a Coursera Plus subscription. A preview is not a free course, so courses like that are not listed on this site.
The second is the audit track. Coursera no longer offers it, so if you remember auditing a course in the past, that route has been replaced by the first-module preview described above.
The third is a course that stays free in full. On those pages the enrolment options include Full Course, No Certificate, which gives you all the materials, the required assessments and a final grade, and the course data carries a free-course flag. Every Coursera record here was checked for that flag, and only courses that carry it are listed.
Free Coursera courses with certificate: are there any?
Not with a free certificate. We checked every Coursera-hosted course on this site, including those listed under university providers such as Yale and Princeton, and none of them combines a free course with a free certificate. The fully free courses fall into two groups instead.
In the first group the course is free and a shareable certificate that can be added to a LinkedIn profile exists as a paid extra. Learning How to Learn, English for Career Development and The Science of Well-Being work this way. In the second group no certificate exists at all: the course FAQ states that no certificates, credentials or reports are awarded. Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology, Bugs 101: Insect-Human Interactions and Private Equity and Venture Capital are examples, as is every Princeton course, which Princeton says is its university policy.
If a free certificate is the point, look at providers that issue one at no cost; the free online courses with certificates page and the free certifications hub list them.
What a Coursera certificate costs on a free course
Coursera does not print the certificate price on the course page; it appears only once you enrol. That is true of every Coursera record on this site, so no price is stored for them. The certificate is described on the pages as a shareable certificate you can add to your LinkedIn profile, and the course FAQ says buying it gives access to all course materials including graded assignments, which on a fully free course you already have.
The one stated price we can give comes from Yale rather than Coursera. Yale Online lists a certificate price for The Science of Well-Being and Moral Foundations of Politics, with pricing that varies by location, so the figure you see may differ.
Financial aid is listed as available on the fully free courses that sell a certificate. On eligible courses it can reduce or remove the certificate fee, so it is the route to a certificate without paying if you qualify.
How to find the free option on a Coursera course page
The free route is easy to miss. These are the steps as Coursera's own pages and course descriptions set them out.
- Open the course page and check that it is one of the fully free courses. Courses listed on this site have been checked; for any other course, the FAQ answer to whether you need to pay is the place to look.
- Click Enroll for Free on the course page.
- When the enrolment options appear, choose Full Course, No Certificate. The English for Career Development description spells this out: click Enroll now and then select Full Course, No Certificate.
- You now have the lectures, readings, required assessments and a final grade. Where the course has a certificate, the paid option is offered separately and you can ignore it.
- If you later want the certificate and cannot afford it, apply for financial aid on the course page; eligible learners can have the fee reduced or removed.
Online free courses on Coursera listed here, by subject
Every course below is free in full. Where a certificate is available it is a paid extra with no price printed on the page; where none is available the course page says so.
Programming and computer science
More free options are on the programming and computer science hubs.
- Learn to Program: The Fundamentals: University of Toronto's introduction to Python, seven modules, listed at three weeks at 10 hours a week, beginner level. Paid certificate.
- Code Yourself! An Introduction to Programming: Scratch programming from the University of Edinburgh and Universidad ORT Uruguay, one week at 10 hours a week; suits teachers too. Paid certificate.
- Algorithms, Part I: Princeton's Java-based algorithms course, five weeks, intermediate level. No certificate.
- Algorithms, Part II: the second half of the same Princeton course, six weeks, intermediate level. No certificate.
- Computer Science: Programming with a Purpose: Princeton's beginner Java course. No certificate.
Study skills, psychology and philosophy
Four courses on thinking, learning and ethics, all free in full.
- Learning How to Learn: study technique in four modules, two weeks at 10 hours a week, beginner level. Paid certificate.
- The Science of Well-Being: Yale's psychology of happiness course with practical challenges. Paid certificate, listed by Yale Online with location-based pricing.
- Introduction to Philosophy: the University of Edinburgh's survey, fourteen short modules, two weeks at 10 hours a week. Paid certificate.
- Effective Altruism: Peter Singer's Princeton course, one week. No certificate.
English, writing and languages
See the English and languages hubs for courses from other providers.
- English for Career Development: University of Pennsylvania's job-search English course, four weeks at 10 hours a week. Paid certificate.
- Writing in English at University: Lund University's academic writing course with a free electronic textbook, three weeks at 10 hours a week. Paid certificate.
- First Step Korean: Yonsei University's elementary Korean, two weeks at 10 hours a week, beginner level. Paid certificate.
- Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop: CalArts' peer-critique poetry course, about 8 hours. Paid certificate.
Business, science and general interest
Courses for general readers, with no prerequisites stated on their pages.
- Private Equity and Venture Capital: Università Bocconi, four modules and a final test, 9 hours. No certificate.
- Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies: Università Bocconi's case-based overview, one week at 10 hours a week. Paid certificate.
- Mountains 101: the University of Alberta's twelve-lesson tour of mountain environments, two weeks at 10 hours a week. Paid certificate.
- Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology and Bugs 101: Insect-Human Interactions: University of Alberta, beginner level. No certificate.
- The Making of Modern Ukraine: Timothy Snyder's Yale lecture course, about 24 hours of video. No certificate.
What is not free on Coursera
Coursera Plus, Specializations, Professional Certificates and degree programmes are paid products and are not listed on this site. A course marked free on Coursera that only offers a first-module preview, a free trial or access through a Coursera Plus subscription is not listed either. If a course you saw described as free is missing here, that is almost always why: we list a course only when its page shows a fully free enrolment option that covers the whole course.
The practical rule is short. A free Coursera course gives you the whole course and a final grade, and you can tell by the Full Course, No Certificate option at enrolment. A certificate on that course is a separate purchase, or is not offered at all, and none of the listed courses hands one out for free.
Sources
- Coursera: popular free courses collection (opens in a new tab)
- Learning How to Learn (opens in a new tab)
- English for Career Development (opens in a new tab)
- Learn to Program: The Fundamentals (opens in a new tab)
- Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology (opens in a new tab)
- Private Equity and Venture Capital (opens in a new tab)
- The Science of Well-Being on Coursera (opens in a new tab)
- Yale Online: The Science of Well-Being (opens in a new tab)
- Algorithms, Part I (opens in a new tab)
- Princeton Online FAQ (opens in a new tab)
Published ; last updated . Facts were read on the pages listed above on the update date; see the editorial policy.