Hillsdale College is celebrating 10 years of free online courses.
The college launched the first of many free online courses, Introduction to the Constitution, in 2011. Ten years later, more than 30 online courses are available with 2.63 million participants — a number the college hopes to double in the next ten years, according to Director of Online Learning Kyle Murnen.
“We were founded with the idea that if you’re going to perpetuate the blessings of civil religious liberty, Americans need to learn certain things,” Murnen said. “This is an effort to try to make it really easy and great for people to learn some of the core curriculum. It’s just urgent to learn.”
Five new courses will be added to the online curriculum this academic year. The first of these, Chair and Professor of the English Department Justin Jackson’s course on 1 and 2 Samuel, will debut on Oct. 5.
The course, titled “First and Second Samuel: The David Story,” “explores David’s character and the consequences of his choices on his family and the people of Israel,” Murnen said. “Online students will learn more about the nature of God, family, leadership, sin, and repentance.”
The four other upcoming courses include American Citizenship with Victor Davis Hanson, the Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic with Assistant Professor of Classics Tripp Young, and Professor of History Ken Calvert, Macroeconomics with Art Laffer, economist and economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and C.S. Lewis and Christianity with Michael Ward, senior research fellow at Oxford University.
Hillsdale’s expert professors present challenging material in an engaging way without losing its complexity, according to Murnen and Minnesotan online student Ron Trainis.
“The professors taught with a joy of teaching that excited my joy of learning. It didn’t take much to keep me involved,” Trainis said.
Trainis said he fosters his love of literature and learning with Hillsdale’s online courses.
“At my point in life, I need to keep exercising the brain or I’m going to lose it,” Trainis said. “So I thought it would be a fun thing to get involved in and enjoy the class.”
Ontario native Anna Perrone said she was inspired to take Hillsdale’s online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
“I realized how interconnected everything is and how math and critical thinking are so deeply related,” Perrone said.
In order to complete a course, students watch videos, take quizzes,. They must pass the final quiz with a score of 80% or higher. According to Murnen, there have been 120,000 course completions in the past 18 months, with 3.4 million quizzes submitted. He also said that about 50% of students chose to solely watch the videos.
Looking forward to the next 10 years, Murnen and his team plan to keep expanding the reach of online courses to eventually include every core subject from Hillsdale’s curriculum. Murnen said the team also hopes to add more interactive elements — such as live Q&As with professors, podcasts, student study groups, or ways to track overall progress through Hillsdale’s core curriculum.
Hillsdale plans to keep the courses free so there’s no barrier for people to learn.
“If you do a good job teaching people, then they support you. The people that have taken these courses have been really generous,” Murned said. “We’ve been lucky with that.”
Online students agree.
“I know it costs to keep them online, but it’s an economic blessing rather than an economic burden, because it’s sure worth it to those of us that are taking classes,” Trainis said.
Perrone urges those hesitant to take an online course due to busy schedules to devote just an hour a week to coursework.
“It’s nothing to lose, but everything to gain,” Perrone said.