Free education
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Free education, or subsidized education is education that is provided at no cost to students. As the old jargon goes, "nothing is free", somebody always has to pay for it, even if not the student, and he or she may have expenses to actually get a free education, like books and other materials. Free education has long ago been identified with "sponsored education" which, nowadays may evoke images of advertising campaigns, but in the past, especially in the Renaissance, was common practice among rich dignitaries who would sponsor the cost of the education of a young man, as his patron.
Free education may take several shapes, depending on its source, patrons, purpose and recipients. Although a parents-sponsored education may be really free to their children, it is not, in fact, considered free education, since the parents pay for it. Nor is it accurate to call government-provided education "free", since it is a returning benefit for taxes paid to the State.
Nowadays, free education usually comes to students in the form of scholarship and grants, if they cover all or most of students' expenses while at school. Patrons for grants and scholarships may be individuals, institutions (often the school itself), advocacy initiatives, etc. They may have economic (e.g. tax-deductibility), humanitarian, charitable or religious reasons.
With the advent of the Internet, where any kind of information can be easily available to millions, online education has become an option for many adult learners. Along with this, free education has also presented itself through several websites, some of them resembling online universities, offering programs in different levels. Online education is facing some barriers. (please append a list)
Online free education suffers from this predicament in addition to the general thought that if something is free, it is not good. Such prejudice has been proved wrong in several instances, since some websites offering free education are doing so in a very responsible and efficient way.
here are some free internet schools, lots of courses, this link http://mit.ols.usu.edu/ is a forum for MIT's free courses.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/all-courses.htm
http://www.free-ed.net/free-ed/
Public Free education is a policy stance in politics that ensures education for its citizens up to a certain level.
Free education in Australia
In the 1970s the Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam introduced reforms which ensured free tertiary education. These reforms were removed later in the 1980s by the Bob Hawke Labor government.
Students and radicals played an important part in forcing the Whitlam government to implement the free education system as well as opposing the introduction of tertiary fees in the 1980s.
