Coursera is so far the most successful online learning platform. It has helped millions of students and workers, to groom their skills in many areas, through its high quality courses ranging from data science, business, computer science, IT, languages, graphic design, public health and so on. These courses are offered by many different professors and researchers from many of the prestigious universities known today. Coursera also offers financial aid to students who cannot afford to pay for a course or course certificate.
In this article, I will show you the simple steps in applying for financial aid on Coursera.
Note: Coursera offers financial aid for courses, specializations and professional certificates only. Guided projects, Master track certificates fees, as well as tuition fees for degrees are not covered with a financial aid application.
Without wasting any time, let’s hit the nail on its head.
1. Open a Coursera Account
To benefit from any course on Coursera, users will have to register with an active email address or login with their Google account on Coursera.org. If you use the former, make sure you use your correct information and a password you can remember. Also, if you login to Coursera with your Google account, make sure to edit your profile so that your information(especially your full name) correspond. This is to ensure that your correct information appear on your coursera certificates.
2. Select a Course
Once you create a coursera account and login, you will be directed to the coursera course catalog page that looks like the image below. The display on your mobile device might be different but not much.
Type any topic on the search bar and enter (or click search) and all courses related to your topic will appear. For instance, when I search for management, the following pages appears:
I will select the Google Project Management professional certificate. This will take you to the page where you can find all the courses included in the professional certficate.
Note: Professional certificates and specializations contain at least three courses and you will need to select each course and apply for financial aid individually. Click on every course, one at a time and apply.
To select the different courses in a specialization or professional certificate, click on the Courses tab on the specialization page, or scroll down the page until you see all the courses available.
For independent courses, the layout looks like the image below.
As you can see on the image as indicated by the red arrow, there is a clickable phrase, “Financial aid available”, click on it to continue your financial aid application.
Incase you don’t see the “Financial aid available” phrase, just refresh your browser and wait for a few seconds. Some times the “Financial aid available” phrase takes time to appear.
Follow the following steps to complete your financial aid application.
Note: The “Enroll for free” option is open to any one who doesn’t want a financial aid. You can explore it on your own, but don’t go for a free trial after you have applied for financial aid else your application will be cancelled.
3. Apply for Financial Aid
- After clicking on the “financial aid available” phrase, a pop up window will appear, click on continue to the application .
- In the next page just tick all options and click continue.
- Next, you will be directed to the application page.
- Fill in the information truthfully. Don’t worry, this does not determine whether you get a financial aid or not.
- You will be asked to write two essays of minimum 150 words each. You don’t need to use big grammar nor sophisticated stories, just write simple essays.
- When you are done answering the questions, click on submit application. You will get a pupop message saying the results of your application will be out in 15 days.
Congratulations, you will be awarded a coursera financial aid in 15 days.
Now that you know how to apply for financial aid on coursera, the only thing stopping you from having access to an unlimited number of courses on coursera is you, becuase once you apply, you will surely get an approval. You can apply for many courses at the same time and all will be approved.
I hope this article was useful, and I wish you luck in your new endeavor to start learning online.
If you want to explore more learning platforms, you can visit the following platforms by clicking on their names:
Also, if you know other platforms that offer opportunities like Coursera, please feel free to post the links in the comment section below.
Leave a comment