Below are some links to some online education sites. Only one is totally free but most have discounts & compared to traditional college & university costs they are cheap!
https://www.udemy.com
Sign up for their newsletter & get a 50% coupon for one course!
http://www.shawacademy.com/
Not cheap but Living Social & Groupon feature discount vouchers that can make these courses very inexpensive.
http://skillcrush.com/
Not cheap but not expensive for what you get. As you learn they coach you & give you leads so you can make money from your budding skills as you learn! All courses are IT related.
https://www.mooc-list.com/
List of free Massive Online Only Courses.
https://www.khanacademy.org/
Free courses! These are aimed at secondary schoolers but many of us (including moi!) need to refresh our basics or even learn/update a few new things. And for free, why not?
http://www.openculture.com/
Links to free e-books, free textbooks, free online courses & more!
https://teamtreehouse.com/
Treehouse is an online educational venue for coding, design and related business courses. You get two weeks free to try them out. The fees are quite reasonable: $25.00 a month for the regular plan or $49.00 for the Pro Plan. Most people would need only the regular plan, especially when they first sign on.
HP(of computer and printer fame) offers some great free classes and learning tools at:
www.hp.com/go/learningcenter
HP offers a wide variety of computer and IT classes, as well as basic business and home office education. The classes are free, totally online and lead by working professionals. You can ask questions of the instructors and chat with your 'classmates' on the discussion boards.
After succesful completion of your class, you can print out a certificate for that class.
You won't get college credit (unless your college accepts these as life long learning credit. You could ask!) but you will get excellent information and training for free.
I've taken several of these courses and I learned some skills and information at HP that weren't included in the advanced IT courses I took at my community college!
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/
FREE ONLINE CLASSES FEATURING ACCREDITED INSTRUCTORS & CONTINUED LEARNING CREDITS & CERTIFICATES FROM GOODWILL.
The classes & skill levels are basic/beginner but I am sure many people could benefit from these classes. I could use the EXCEL classes myself.
The site even has some very basic Photoshop lessons!
Virginia Co-operative Extension Services programs were designed with rural folk and farmers in mind, but their education site has tons of free information on gardening, health, money management and other topics that we city slickers can also use.
