Knowledge is power: free (or very cheap) education online (mostly)
Poverty and unemployment are very high in the autistic community. A lot of traditional jobs just aren’t autism-friendly on one level or another. Even though higher education increases your chances of getting employed at a job that pays living wages, that education itself is incredibly expensive if you live in ‘Murica. Thanks to the internet, more free/cheap educational resources are widely available.
Even if these aren’t sufficient for finding a job, keep in mind that these can also be used to work freelance or start your own business. I just thought I’d bring that up because the Autistic Revolution strongly encourages autistic entrepreneurship *wink wink nudge nudge*
1) Duolingo
I already know that Duolingo is very popular, and there are entire blogs devoted to the funny shit that you have to say on the app, but I need to bring this one up so that we can actually appreciate something that many of us take for granted. Duolingo is a free app (and also can be used online, as I prefer to do it). Languages are very important to learn. They can be very useful in making yourself more marketable for various jobs. You not only get to learn the language and merely claim you can speak it, but Duolingo can actually confirm that you have these skills because it allows you to publicly post your progress and fluency in the target language.
2) Alison
Alison is a website that offers numerous free courses for a wide variety of subjects. You can learn various coding languages, regular languages, business stuff, and way more for free. If you wanna get a physical (or PDF) copy of your certificate/diploma, you have to pay for it. However, it doesn’t really matter if you buy it or not because your prospective employers will be able to just find your certification in the system. These certificates/diplomas don’t count for any college credit, so please don’t get your hopes too high and think that you’ll be able to become a clinical psychologist or a nurse just because you took the Alison courses. That in no way means that this is a waste of time, because of what I’ll talk about in a bit.
3) iTunes U/YouTube
For those of you who have iTunes, iTunes U gives you access to free lectures from colleges and universities from around the world. You can also find free college lectures on YouTube.Obviously, none of these lectures will give you any college credit if you’re not taking the actual class. It can be good for feeding your special interests, but it can also be used to help you out with this next thing.
4) CLEP Exams
CLEP exams are college-level tests that you can take to get college credit. Why pay several hundreds of dollars per class that takes up lots of time and probably doesn’t interest you in the slightest when you can pay about $90 for a test that’s only a few hours and will give you the same credits? If you don’t feel like sitting though an actual literature class and wanna do other things in the time you could be rotting in a classroom, listen to some free lectures or use what you learned in an Alison course, then use it to take the CLEP Exams. This will also radically reduce your college costs if you do plan to go to college. Just make sure to do your research first, because some colleges only accept credits from specific tests.
5) University of the People
University of the People is a fully-accredited tuition-free online college. They only offer 3 degree programs, so this is for my computer scientists, business people, and nurses. You won’t pay any tuition for this college, but you do have to pay an application fee and testing fees. Even though there are a lot of hidden costs, it can drastically lower the cost of your education. You can get a Master’s Degree in business on there (wink wink nudge nudge), so go check it out. I’d also like to start an Autistic Revolution scholarship/college fund if enough people show interest in taking these classes.
6) Libraries
Never underestimate libraries. They’re more than just buildings full of books (though that can also be very useful with education). They might offer some extra educational services, such as free online courses, hard copies of course material in their stacks, classes/seminars in the actual libraries themselves, and lots of job hunting resources. You can also obviously get free internet access there and be able to do all the other above-mentioned stuff while you’re there.
There are way too many free/cheap educational resources on the internet to make an exhaustive list, but I really hope this helps you guys and inspires you to further your education and make some money.
