You don't need to shell out hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to learn a new skill and advance your education. There are many cheap, and in most cases free, resources out there for anyone who wants to do a little self-improvement while staying comfortable at home.
Coursera
First up, Coursera is one of the best online resources out there with hundreds of online courses through major and reputable universities and companies such as Duke, Stanford, and IBM. Explore topics like business, data & computer sciences, mathematics, health, arts, and more. Along with all the free courses available they also have ways to earn a full degree from home (and for relatively less money).
Free Code Camp
If you've always wanted to be a code monkey but haven't pulled the trigger, now might be the perfect time to start. Free Code Camp is an online learning resource that allows you to learn code, build projects, and even earn certification online and for free. You can learn responsive web design, Javascript algorithms, data visualization, and more.
Duolingo
Definitely the easiest way to learn another language, Duolingo is a free service that offers bite-sized daily lessons to help you become bi-lingual. You can learn online through your laptop or even download the app on your phone. Duolingo uses games and rewards to keep you invested (and to keep it fun) and knows just the right time to bring back an old lesson to refresh your memory.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization with the goal of providing free, world-class education for everyone. There are courses in every level of Mathematics from pre-school on, science, computing, arts, and more with special resources depending on if you're a learner, teacher, or parent. They even have test preps for things like the SAT's, LSAT's, and MCAT's.
Youtube
Everyone likes a good cat video, meme, or badly cut talking-head video of somebody rambling about the daily happenings but Youtube has an abundance of channels that are highly eduction too. There are universities that offer free lectures like YaleCourses, bite-sized science lessons with minutephysics, or deep dives into numbers and mathematics with Numberphile.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a massive free encyclopedia that has information on anything you could ever need to know. The main page always has a daily featured article, picture, and history from today's date. With links to other articles littered throughout each post, it's easy to jump from place to place, learning as you go. Don't underestimate the education power of this old reliable Wikipedia.
TED
TED is a non-profit devoted to spreading ideas with short online videos that are 20 minutes in length or less. There are tons of different interesting topics like how boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas, how technology has changed what it's like to be deaf, and the most groundbreaking scientist you've never heard of.
Music Theory
Fill your house with the sound of music. It might be the perfect time to finally pick up that guitar, piano, or violin and start learning. Music Theory offers free lessons and exercises to teach you everything from the basics like measures and time signatures to more advanced things like chord progression and scales.
Featured image courtesy of Startup Stock Photos via Pexels.com
