Should Knowledge Have a Price Tag?

In "Graduate School: A Refuge from the Recession," we started to discuss the difficulty of paying back graduate loans, and the pressure to attain higher degrees. But somewhere under all that paperwork you do in graduate school, is that love of learning which made you an 'academic' in the first place.

 Good news, you no longer have to pay top dollar to maintain your love of learning. Reader's Digest wrote an article "Free Classes are a Click Away," with a list of free online courses you can take. If you have streaming devices, such as Xbox 360 or Roku players, you can even stream channels that offer lectures from Ivy League professors. Here are some good sites to take a peek at:




LiveMocha
I started using LiveMocha to learn Portuguese, but they offer plenty of free learning modules on every language from Italian to Arabic. People all over the world who are proficient in one language can provide feedback to LiveMocha students trying to get a better grasp of their native tongues. You can be both a student and teacher of languages on LiveMocha, and they even offer flashcards you can print out and practice when you are commuting to work on the train.

Khan Academy 
Salman Khan started teaching a younger relative mathematics and started creating online videos to demonstrate elementary concepts to her. The videos caught on, and Salman has made videos on all kinds of topics from physics, to history. Those interested in medicine and health-related fields, there's even some anatomy and physiology there for you too. One man, many topics in an easy to understand method of teaching.

iTunes U: Download lectures to your ipod and play it on your commute to and from work to stimulate that brain.

YouTube EDU
Whether you are thinking of pursuing medical school, law school, or business school, there are all kinds of lectures here for you to sample hot topics in various fields of study. They can even be found in multiple different languages.

Academic Earth
Academic Earth is allows users to rate different lectures, so you can sift through them and find the most interesting ones. There is a great selection of lectures from Ivy League professors.

Open Culture
If you like to download lessons, listen to audiobooks, and academic lectures, this site has plenty of free downloads that you can listen to anywhere.