Free Online Courses to Boost Your Financial Literacy

Increase your financial literacy by taking free online courses on budgeting, investing, and debt management from popular platforms such as Khan Academy, Coursera, and edX. Personal finance basics, stock market fundamentals, and behavioral finance are among the key topics covered. Popular choices include Yale’s Financial Markets and SabiMONI.

Top Free Financial Literacy Courses

• Khan Academy Financial Literacy: Comprehensive, self-paced modules on banking, taxes, insurance, and consumer credit.
• Coursera Financial Markets (Yale University): Led by Prof. Robert Shiller, this covers risk management and behavioral finance.
• SabiMONI: Interactive, self-paced financial education designed for practical skill improvement.
• Jobberman Financial Literacy Course: Focuses on managing assets, debt, and personal budgeting.
• edX Finance Courses: Offers various introductory courses on financial planning and investment fundamentals. 

Core Topics Covered

These courses generally cover essential areas to improve financial health: 

• Budgeting & Saving: Learning to manage expenses and create a financial plan.
• Credit & Debt Management: Understanding how to build credit and manage debt effectively.
• Investing & Retirement: Fundamentals of stock markets, assets, and retirement planning.
• Financial Decision-Making: Behavioral finance, risk analysis, and cash flow management.

Specialized & Short Courses

• 54-Minute Financial Literacy (YouTube): Fast-paced overview of money management strategies.
• University of Pennsylvania (Coursera): Introduction to Corporate Finance, focusing on business fundamentals.
• Alison Free Financial Courses: Offers CPD-accredited certificates for professional development.

These resources provide flexible learning opportunities to help you build a secure financial future.

If you’re not sure where to find worthwhile online personal finance courses, here are 10 you can take for free:

1. Finance for Everyone: Smart Tools for Decision-Making

The Finance for Everyone course was developed by the University of Michigan to teach students frameworks for making good financial decisions. It’s self-paced, with an estimated time commitment of five to six hours per week over six weeks. You can find the course on EdX, an online learning platform created by Harvard and MIT to make the world’s best education available to everyone.

2. Brigham Young University’s Personal Finance Courses

Brigham Young University’s (BYU’s) free online personal finance classes offer a wealth of information. The courses offer beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Users can access the coursework for free and learn through videos and money-management assignments. The class offers a do-it-yourself approach and covers tips for achieving financial independence, saving, trading stocks and setting long-term financial goals.

3. Udemy.com’s Personal Finance 101

Udemy.com, a popular online learning platform, features numerous personal finance classes. Many of the classes are low-cost, but Personal Finance 101 is free and designed for beginners. It includes more than 50 short videos totaling almost three hours of content on topics ranging from credit card basics and financing your education to relationships and finances.

4. Purdue University’s Planning for a Secure Retirement

This online course, located on Purdue University’s website, has 10 modules, all with lessons designed to teach you how to have a successful retirement. Like the BYU course, it’s self-guided, and you can learn about topics such as understanding your risk tolerance when saving for retirement and navigating account types. While the course offers a wealth of information, it’s best suited for those interested in learning how to achieve a financially secure retirement.

Read Also: Must-Listen Podcasts About Financial Independence

5. Duke University’s Behavioral Finance Course

Coursera.org, a platform offering classes taught by university professors around the world, offers paid courses in which students can interact with professors, receive graded assignments and earn certifications for a fee. But you can also find free classes on the website, including a three-week behavioral finance class from Duke University. In the class, you’ll learn how biases impact how much you spend on food, how to tip and how much to allocate for insurance. The self-paced course takes five hours and has been taken by nearly 200,000 learners.

6. The University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign’s Financial Planning for Young Adults

Next up is another free course you can find on Coursera.org, but this one comes from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Designed for beginners, this introductory personal finance online class covers financial goal-setting, saving and investing, budgeting, financial risk, borrowing and credit. You can expect it to take about 20 hours over two weeks.

7. Alison.com’s Introduction to Managing Your Personal Finance Debts

The Introduction to Managing Your Personal Finance Debts financial literacy course on Alison.com covers everything you’d want to know about managing or eliminating debt, offering tips on prioritizing debts and strategies for bringing down a credit card balance. It’ll even help you devise a debt elimination plan – all in about 1.5 to three hours, Alison estimates, depending on how fast you go through it.

8. Marginal Revolution University’s Money Skills

Marginal Revolution University is a nonprofit project housed at George Mason University that aims to give everyone free access to a world-class economic education. Through the program, you can access this Money Skills class, which features 10 videos and financial exercises led by George Mason professors and founders of the nonprofit, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. Aimed at beginners, the topics include advice on investing, real estate and careers.

9. Khan Academy’s Financial Literacy Course

Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization that offers free education, including a helpful course on financial literacy. The seven-unit course teaches you everything from saving and budgeting to loans, insurance and investments. This is perfect if you want a crash course on all things finance, broken down into manageable modules that are easy to understand.

10. Planning for Risk and Retirement

Planning for Risk and Retirement, another offering on EdX is a four-week course from Indiana University that includes four to six hours of instruction per week. It’s free and self-paced, so you can go through the course at your own speed . You’ll tackle everything from life insurance to retirement planning. As the description states, “Students in this course will gain both conceptual and practical knowledge of the inevitable and universal decisions around managing risk, planning for retirement, and starting a program of investment.”

Finally

Finally, this three-hour Coursera session teaches you how to work smarter, allowing you to make the most of your time at work. It addresses themes such as the distinction between productive and unproductive work, the fundamentals of time management, and how to achieve work-life balance through films, readings, and quizzes.

If you wish to refresh your personal finance knowledge and skills, one or more of these courses might assist.