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Whether you've dreamed of attending a Yale lecture or sampling a University of Michigan course before applying to grad school, online learning offers a convenient way to explore your interests or gain valuable new skills.

And on e-learning platforms like edX, Coursera, and FutureLearn, you can take thousands of online courses led by accredited universities, many of them completely free. Most also offer optional paid certificates of completion you can add to your resume or LinkedIn, or are part of longer programs that can potentially be more affordable alternatives to on-campus learning.

To narrow down all the free options, we outlined the most popular free online classes from the top 20 universities, as ranked by US News. (Note: University of California, Los Angeles, and University of California, San Francisco don't offer online classes through these platforms, so they don't appear on this list.) We determined popularity by the highest number of current enrollments, and included courses that are part of longer certificate programs as you can still audit them for free.

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The best free online course from the top 20 universities - Business Insider