Who says higher education can’t be cheap? With the help of a computer, you can have access to college lectures, webinars, and course discussions at the click of a button. Some of the best colleges in the country are jumping on the distance education bandwagon, and are offering free college courses online. Take a look at some of the best online courses out there:

1. UC Berkeley – consistently ranked as one of the top public schools in the United States, Berkeley offers podcasts and webcasts of some of its best classes. Each course has its own RSS feed that lets viewers track each new lecture. Each professor has his/her own homepage where you can print assignments and notes. You can check out UC Berkeley classes on Google Video.

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – MIT is one of the premier institutes of learning for science and engineering. While many of the courses don’t have video lectures, they have notes in PDF format along with tests and homework.

Visit: MIT OpenCourseware Course Listings
Visit: MIT OpenCourseware Online Textbooks
Visit: MIT Courses With Video Lectures
Visit: MITWorld Public Videos
Visit: MIT Pocast: ZigZag

3. Carnegie Mellon University – CMU is a nationally-ranked private university. Though you don’t have to be a registered student to listen in on online classes, they have a registered user mode that lets visitors keep track of their scores and progress on tests and exams. The courses, which are essentially e-books, are available here.

4. Utah State University – this public school has more than 47 departments in seven different academic disciplines, meaning that there is a professor to suit every interest. Check out Utah State’s course listings to see if there’s a class available that will suit your interest.

5. Tufts University – Tufts is one of the most academically-rigorous universities in the country. While the school only houses 5,000 undergraduate students, it offers an impressive variety of courses that range from life sciences to literature. Check out some of Tufts’ best online classes.

6. OpenLearn – OpenLearn is a European site that is supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The site contains a few distance courses with lots of online forums that serve as platforms for discussion.

7. Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health – the Public Health school at Johns Hopkins is dedicated to protecting health and saving lives–millions at a time through innovative public health measures. If you’re interested in health issues, visit:

JHSPH OCW Course Listings
Johns Hopkins University Podcasts

8. Connexions – CCX is a type of open library of course materials that are developed by Rice University. It has a huge variety of content on a wide variety of subjects.
Take a look at what Connexions has available here.

9. University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering – if you’re interested in computers, science, or engineering, the University of Washington offers world-class classes, many of which are offered online. Take a look at what this school has to offer.

10. Foothill College – under the leadership of Foothill College, a program called Sofia is offering eight different courses that help to promote online learning and collaborative distance education.