Coursera online access to the world’s best education

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Coursera as a platform is developing in geometric progression. Coursera’s enrollment has more than doubled in the past two years, and it’s now a learning platform for more than 90 million students. It is also the online education platform of choice for large corporations such as Adobe and MasterCard to train their workforce. At first glance, Coursera seems like an ideal platform for learning any topic online. To see if this is still the case in 2023, I’ll take a deeper look at the platform in this Coursera review, taking into account recent changes to the platform and pricing.

Coursera is one of the leading online education sites in the world. In partnership with some of the world’s leading universities, Coursera offers massive open online courses (MOOCs), professional certificates, micro-accreditation programs, and online degrees. It was one of the first companies in the MOOC industry to achieve the status of a so-called “unicorn” with a valuation of more than $1 billion. It is designed specifically for students who want the benefits of online learning without sacrificing university-level quality. In this Coursera review, you’ll find out why.

To give you an overview of the platform, here are some recent key figures about Coursera’s offerings:

  • 113+ million registered students
  • 10,300+ online courses and projects
  • 790+ specializations
  • 100+ professional certificate programs
  • 30 MasterTrack micro-accounting programs
  • 6 online bachelor’s degrees
  • 32 master’s degrees online
  • 46 online university certificates
  • Over 2,900 corporate clients, including Adobe and the Abu Dhabi School of Public Administration

How much does Coursera cost?

The cost of Coursera depends on the type of online class.

  • Individual Coursera courses cost from $29 to $99. In most cases, they can be checked for free.
  • Coursera specialization programs are based on monthly payments ranging from $39 to $89.
  • Coursera MasterTrack certificate programs start at $2,000 and some cost up to $5,000.
  • Most online bachelor’s and master’s degrees cost between $10,000 and $50,000. Some are cheaper: MBA at $6,000 and Bachelor of Computer Science at $4,000-$6,000, both offered by top universities in India.

Coursera Plus is Coursera’s annual subscription service that gives students unlimited access to over 10,000 Coursera courses, projects and specializations, as well as many professional certifications. At $59 per month or $399 per year, this plan offers excellent value for students who frequently take online courses.

Coursera online courses

Now it’s time to review Coursera’s most important feature, the Coursera online course catalog. As of the last update of this Coursera review, there are over 6,000 online courses available on the platform, with more being added all the time. In addition, there are more than 4,000 short individual projects of various types.

Coursera courses are offered in partnership with leading universities or leading industry players such as Google and Nvidia. This is a significant advantage of Coursera over other platforms such as Udemy. Online courses on Udemy are not always supported by universities and are usually developed by independent teachers. Of course, there are some fantastic courses on such platforms as well. However, there’s no getting around the fact that they also have a lot of low-quality courses created by instructors who aren’t real experts.

With Coursera, at least you know that any course you pay for is guaranteed university-level quality.

How do Coursera courses work?

For the most part, Coursera courses work the same as other online course providers. Training programs on Coursera are divided into weekly parts, and online courses usually include the following types of study materials:

  • video lectures
  • materials for online reading
  • quizzes
  • evaluated tasks


After gaining knowledge through video lectures and reading materials, you are usually offered a test to test your knowledge. Depending on the course, the first week of classes may not include quizzes, but every Coursera course I’ve seen has included quizzes at some point in the curriculum. Assessed tasks usually start later in the program because they already require a significant amount of knowledge and skills from the student.

However, it should be noted that not all of these features are free. In most cases, checking out an online course on Coursera is free, meaning you can review all of the course material for free. However, the audit does not include tests and graded assignments. For me, the tests and assignments are the most educational (and fun!) part of a Coursera course, so paying for the course is a strong motivating factor.

Official website: coursera.org