8 Colleges and Universities Offering Free Accounting Courses Online
Looking to gain or expand your knowledge of accounting? Here's a list of colleges and universities that offer free, high quality accounting courses online.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)
- Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting Course
- Financial Accounting
- Taxes and Business Strategy
The MIT OpenCourseWare project makes graduate level accounting courses from the MIT Sloan School of Management available to everyone. Online courses consist of PDF lecture notes, reading lists and in some cases, quizzes and examinations. No registration is required.
2. Open University of the UK (open.ac.uk)
- Introduction to the Context of Accounting
- Influences on Accounting Regulation Course
- Investment Risk
Britain's Open University is dedicated to providing a high quality university education that is free for everyone. There are several accounting courses offered through the project. All are comprehensive and easily accessible from the site. No registration is required.
3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)
Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative provides everyone with free access to online course books used in Carnegie Mellon's Micro Economics course. Course books include text, graphing applets, tests, computer tutors and virtual online experiments. Registration is not required, but is recommended if you want to save your work as you progress through the course.
4. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)
Kutztown University's Small Business Development Center offers four different free accounting courses online. Courses range from intermediate to advanced and include audio stream, high end graphics and interactive case studies. Registration is required, but there is no charge.
5. University of Alaska - College of Business and Public Policy (scob.alaska.edu)
Dr. Fred Barbee's Principles of Financial Accounting Course is an introduction to financial accounting concepts and principles. The course is free for everyone and includes access to homework assignments, practice exams, PowerPoint slides, learning games and other course materials. No registration is required.
6. University of California- Irvine (uci.edu)
The University of California-Irvine offers one free course that may be of interest to aspiring accountants who want to learn the basics of financial planning. The comprehensive text-based course is accessible through the school's website. No registration is required.
7. Gresham College (gresham.ac.uk)
- Financial Institutions, Regulation and Compliance
- 1,000 Years of Mathematics
- A Single Global Financial Market
Britain's Gresham College is well known for the free public lectures the school's professors give in London. Thousands of these lectures are now available online in streaming audio and video. RealPlayer is necessary to play most of the free accounting lectures. Registration is not required.
8. Wikibooks (wikibooks.org)
Wikibooks isn't a traditional university per se, but it is an educational resource worth checking out. The Wikimedia community has a huge textbook collection that is free to everyone. The accountancy collection is a great place for beginners to start. No registration is required.
