Find your perfect college degree
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81% of people believe education is shifting to autodidacticism
College Cliffs is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.
Autodidacts In Action
- Autodidact: a person who is partially or completely self-taught
- Who has attained expert level knowledge through self-education?
- Frederick Douglass
- American abolitionist and speaker
- Mukul Deva
- Indian writer, speaker, and coach
- Melanie Klein
- Founder of children’s psychology
- Frida Kahlo
- Mexican painter and portrait artist
- Nazir Naji
- Pakistani Journalist and writer for the Prime Minister
- Steve Jobs
- Founder of Apple
The truth is, self-education is right at your fingertips
Formal College Degrees Are Increasingly Unpopular
- Costs
- College costs tripled in less than 20 years
- Cost of a Bachelor’s Degree may be more than $400,000 (including lost income)
- The average learner spends 20 years paying off student loans
- Housing Insecurity
- 56% are housing insecure every year
- 17% have been homeless in the last year
- Military students are more likely to be homeless
- Lost Income
- Students who cannot work full time lose up to $39,676 a year
- 50% of students cannot afford a healthy diet
- 20% lost weight because they could not afford food
- High school diploma holders earn $158,704 over 4 years (while college students cannot work)
More than half of Gen Zs in the US believe degrees aren’t necessary for success
Popular Fields That Are Often Self Taught
- Coding Developers
- Demand hit 22% in 2020
- Marketing
- Demand hit 6% in 2020
- Data Analysts
- Demand hit 28% in 2020
73% of college grads are working in a job unrelated to their degree
Reasons To Get A Self-Taught College Education
- Retraining For Work
- 42% of Americans use free online resources to retrain for work
- Upskilling
- 31% of US workers are upskilling for free online
- Boosting Soft Skills
- 78% of people worldwide believe they need more training in softer business skills
- Low Costs
- The average college degree costs $35,720 per student per year
Finding college-level education online is easier than you might think
Websites For Self Learning
- University websites offer free courses
- Business, Computer Science, Healthcare – Harvard University
- Geometry, Economics, Chemical Science – MIT
- Fintech, English, Data Science – Berkeley
- Aggregate sites collect the best courses for you
- CollegeCliffs.com
- EdX.org
- Coursera
- Expert Made Courses
- Udemy.com
- Khan Academy
- TedED
- MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
- Free online courses for anyone to enroll in
- Canvas Network
- FutureLearn
- LinkedIn Learning
College websites aren’t the only place you can go for self-taught college education
Tools For Self Learning
- Codeacademy.com
- Interactive platform teaches you to code in multiple languages
- SkillShare
- Learning via interactivity and project completion
- PluralSight
- Training courses for software devs, IT admin, and related fields
Knowing which platforms to use will help you make the best decision about courses
Free College Education Options By Discipline
- Business Administration
- Harvard University
- Healthcare
- Alison.com
- Data / Computer Science
- MIT
- Education
- University of Michigan
The most important part of self-taught education is finishing it well
How To Stay On Course
- Minimize distractions by working in a quiet place
- Set goals and mile markers
- Follow a study schedule
- Enhance what you already know
- Get an accountability buddy
- Physically move to a different space
- Library
- Coffeeshop
- Business Center
- Remind yourself why you want to learn
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” – Isaac Asimov, Famous American writer, and professor of biology
College Cliffs Can Help
- Free online resource for students
- Provides information about the college journey
- Scholarships
- Career Guides
- College Rankings
- Internships
- Free online college classes
- Makes it easy to choose a path you’ll love
College-level education is in good hands — yours.
Sources
- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/advertising-promotions-and-marketing-managers.
- https://www.udemy.com
- https://www.khanacademy.org/
- https://ed.ted.com/
- https://www.codecademy.com/
- https://www.skillshare.com/
- https://www.pluralsight.com/product/skills/individuals
- https://alison.com/courses/health
- https://ai.umich.edu/
- https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college
- https://online-learning.harvard.edu/catalog/free
- https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
- https://www.edx.org/school/uc-berkeleyx
- www.CollegeCliffs.com
- https://www.edx.org/
- https://www.coursera.org/
- https://thenextweb.com/news/over-65-percent-of-new-developers-are-self-taught-im-surprised-its-not-100-percent
- https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/advertising-promotions-and-marketing-managers.
- https://quanthub.com/data-scientist-shortage-2020/
