First the disclaimer: none of these sites provide you with either CLE or college credit. What they do provide are college-level courses at no cost and they are all designed around the idea that the general dissemination of knowledge is a good thing. So whether you are looking to learn a new language (to improve client communication) or just pick up an introduction to a subject you are curious about, these ten sites should help.

1. OpenCourseWare Consortium

A collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. Links to the participating members’ course can be found here.

2. Open Culture

Emphasizes educational materials directed towards culture, the arts, and entertainment.

3. Academic Earth

Lectures in the Sciences, Law, Mathematics, Religion and Politics.

4. OpenUW

A series of courses covering a strange mix of subjects from the American Civil War to Tolkien’s heroic fantasies.

5. The Open Learning Initiative

On-line courses designed to replace those boring large format introductory courses in Economics, Statistics, Causal Reasoning, and Logic.

6. The Sofia Project

A set of 8 courses covering Typography, Statistics, Geography, Web Design/Programming, Network Security, and Musicianship.

7. MIT OpenCourseWare

A collection of 1800 courses that covers virtually all MIT course content.

8. Stanford Engineering Everywhere

Stanford’s on-line portal to its most popular engineering courses.

9. Tufts OpenCourseWare

A variety of courses in Medicine, Dentistry, Political Science, and Veterinary Medicine.

10. ERI’s Human Resource Training

Courses covering a variety of Human Resource and Employment Law topics.