If you want to learn how to make smart financial decisions, save more money and eliminate debt, you’re in luck. Today, there are plenty of free online personal finance classes to sharpen your money-management skills.
“Keep in mind that online personal finance courses should be seen as an educational resource and not specific personal financial advice,” says Drew Feutz, a certified financial planner in Indianapolis and co-founder of Migration Wealth Management.
“The information learned from taking a personal finance course should be applied within the context of your own financial situation, rather than following everything that is taught 100% to a T,” he adds.
Feutz notes that too often, people read or hear something from a personal finance expert or a course they’re compelled to act on. “Some things that you learn about in a personal finance course may not be applicable to you or may not be appropriate to implement in your own life,” he says.
Some personal finance class lessons, however, can not only help you boost your money-management skills but may also inspire you to reflect on saving and spending patterns and help you build a strong foundation for success.
They may also drill down into topics including Roth IRAs, 401(k)s, stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit and strategies for eliminating credit card debt. In a nutshell, it can never hurt to try and be better informed about how you spend money.
If you’re not sure where to find worthwhile online personal finance courses, here are 11 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.
[READ: Legitimate Ways to Get Free Money Online.]
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.
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.
[Read: 8 Free Investment Classes and Resources for Adults and Teens]
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.”
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management for Personal & Professional Productivity
Last but not least, this three-hour Coursera class helps you work smarter so you can make the most of the time you spend working. It covers topics such as the difference between productive and unproductive work, the basics of time planning and how to find work/life balance — all through videos, readings and quizzes.
If you want to brush up on your personal finance knowledge and skills, hopefully one or more of these courses can help.
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11 Best Free Online Personal Finance Courses originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 06/24/25: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
