Coursera Makes Certificate Programs Free to College Students During Pandemic

Online learning provider Coursera has opened up its certificate programs to current undergraduate, graduate or recently graduated college and university students. Students with a verified school e-mail address can sign up for free access to more than 3,800 courses, 150 guided projects, 400 specializations and 11 professional certificates on the platform. They must enroll before July 31, and have until Sept. 30, 2020 to complete the programs.

If there are courses, specializations or professional certificates that students wish to complete after the Sept. 30 deadline, they can continue many of those programs in audit mode, which provides free access to course materials (but does not include a certificate upon completion). They will also continue to have free access to guided projects, a recently announced learning model offering short, interactive instruction focused on job skills. With guided projects, "students can learn a new skill in under two hours with step-by-step guidance from a subject-matter expert," according to the company. Topics include data analysis with Plotly and Python, app development in Android Studio with Java, and social media marketing with Canva, among others.

Students can also use Coursera's CourseMatch tool, introduced in April, to find courses on the platform that best match their university catalog.

For more information, visit the Coursera site.  

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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