Coursera Offers Thousands of Free Online Courses to Jobless

By Dana Cruz First Posted: Sep 02, 2020 03:21 AM EDT

Coursera has opened up thousands of free online courses to unemployed workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiative is known as the Workforce Recovery Initiative, and it gives the unemployed access to 90 percent of Coursera's catalog of free online courses.

Those who wish to access it can learn certificate programs through government agencies and community colleges.

Coursera launched the initiative in the hope of giving unemployed workers a means to re-skill and re-enter, the Business Insider reported. Some of the free online courses in the Workforce Recovery Initiative are from state governments and leaders worldwide.

There are about 3,800 offered courses from top names like Amazon and Google, said a CNBC report.

An example of professional credentials that can be obtained through Coursera is the Google I.T. Support Professional Support Certificate. This course can open various opportunities in on-demand tech jobs.

Unemployed workers can take classes as long as they want to, for free. Without free access, it will cost them about $399 a year.

According to Business Wire, some U.S. states like Illinois, Arizona, and Oklahoma will be the first to make the service free. This set of locations is expected to increase in the next few weeks.

How it Works

By design, the course offerings are already workforce-ready. The company creates courses and pairs them with expert instructors.

Using the program, the jobless can get free access to the thousands of courses from top universities such as Duke and Yale. There are also companies like IBM and Google, offering free online courses.

Students can pick if they want single courses or Job Paths, a collection of courses that prepare them for specific roles. There are also certificate programs that can help boost a person's resume.

The company's Chief Enterprise Officer Leah Belsky said the first thing they noticed in the world after the COVID-19 shutdown was education's shutdown. She said they were looking for ways to support people who were forced to let go of their jobs.

Demand for Coursera Increased

According to the site's CEO, Jeff Maggioncalda, their service has been seeing better demand lately. As 1.6 billion students are stuck at home due to stay-at-home orders, they moved to online learning.

The increase in users was the reason why the company decided to take down the paywall for a while.

As per the 2019 CNBC Disruptor 50 list, Coursera has about 56 million registered users worldwide. This year is particularly good for the company as they only had about 40 million users a year ago.

About 10 million users signed up for the past month, as the company partnered with more colleges, enabling schools to offer free access to their course catalog.

"We hope this initiative can serve many millions of impacted workers around the world," Maggioncalda said.

This is not the only program the Coursera has led amid the pandemic. The site is also offering those with a ".edu" email access to 90 percent of the catalog until the end of the month.