If you’re a high school looking to explore and develop your talents in a specific field or gain a deeper understanding of your areas of interest, explore online programs hoisted by colleges! When we say online college programs, we mean programs you can explore without having to attend in person, hosted by colleges.
Many colleges offer online programs in a wide range of subjects, helping you take college-level courses from wherever you are based.
Such online programs pack a semester’s worth of learning into a few weeks and are designed to provide foundational knowledge in a subject. These programs often provide admissions counselling and mentorship to prepare you for college life. If you are looking to explore new academic fields and develop your skills without having to attend an in-person program, an online college program may suit your needs.
Here are 10 online college programs for high school students:
1. Johns Hopkins Internship in Brain Sciences
Location: Online or in-person in Baltimore, MD
Cost: Free of cost
Deadline: March 1
Program Dates: 5 weeks for the virtual program.
Eligibility: Current high school juniors or seniors living anywhere in North America (U.S. or Canada)
The Johns Hopkins Internship in Brain Sciences offers high school students hands-on experience in neurological sciences. The program includes educational sessions, lab techniques, experiments, mentorship, professional development, and networking. It also provides college prep classes and a certificate upon completion.
2. Stanford Online’s Machine Learning Specialization
Location: Online
Cost: Free of cost
Deadline: Open enrollment
Program Dates: Self-paced
Eligibility: Open to all high school students
This course, one of the many provided by the Stanford School of Engineering, will introduce you to the fundamentals of machine learning and how to build real-world AI applications. This is a 3-course specialization and includes supervised learning (multiple linear regression, logistic regression, neural networks, and decision trees), and unsupervised learning (clustering, dimensionality reduction, recommender systems).
The course also includes some of the best practices in artificial intelligence and machine learning innovation (evaluating and tuning models, taking a data-centric approach to improving performance, and more). The program provides foundational knowledge to beginners by blending theory and practice.
3. MIT OpenCourseWare: Structure of Materials
Location: Online
Cost: Free of cost
Deadline: Open enrollment
Program Dates: Self-paced
Eligibility: Open to all high school students
MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering offers a 3-part series on the structure of materials. You can learn about a material, its properties, its potential applications, and its performance within those applications.
Part 1 is an introductory course delving into amorphous materials and glasses and polymers, the factors that influence their structure, and how materials scientists measure and describe the structure of these materials. Part 2 looks at the crystalline state, and Part 3 looks at liquid crystals, defects, and diffusion.
4. Yale Online: Introduction to Political Philosophy
Location: Online
Cost: Free of cost
Deadline: Open enrollment
Program Dates: Self-paced
Eligibility: Open to all high school students
A beginner-friendly course, Yale Online’s Introduction to Political Philosophy critically examines major texts and thinkers to understand Western political traditions. You will read about Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and many more to analyze some broad themes: the polis experience, the sovereign state, constitutional government, and democracy.
These themes will help you learn about political life. Through this course, you will think about how various political philosophies have informed different political institutions and the Western way of life at large.
5. BerkeleyX: Fundamentals of Economics
Location: Online
Cost: Free of cost. A paid certificate is available.
Deadline: Open enrollment
Program Dates: Self-paced
Eligibility: Open to all high school students
Using data science applications and Python programming, you will learn the basic concepts of economics in BerkeleyX’s Fundamentals of Economics course. Placed at the intersection of economics and data science, the first course in the 3-part series covers demand, supply, equilibrium, and taxes.
You will learn to code and solve basic equations in Python, graph basic microeconomics equations, and visualize demand and supply graphs using data. After completing this introductory course, you can move on to the other courses in the DATA 88EX: Economic Models with Python Professional Certificate Program.
6. City University of New York’s College Now
Location: Online, hybrid or in-person
Cost: Free of cost
Deadline: March 5 for the spring session
Program Dates: March 8 – June 14
Eligibility: Students who attend an NYCPS high school, are homeschooled, or with disabilities whose private school tuition is supported by an NYCPS. Some courses have GPA requirements. Graduating seniors are ineligible for summer programs.
CUNY’s College Now is a dual enrollment program for high school students to earn college credit. In this program, you can explore different courses and majors that fulfill typical introductory first-year requirements.
Academic preparatory courses and skill-building workshops will help you prepare for college life and the career of your choice. You will also attend college and career readiness seminars or workshops, work-based learning initiatives, college campus visits, and career fairs.
7. Harvard University’s 7-Week Secondary School Program Online
Location: Online
Cost: $4,050 (4-credits) or $7,900 (8-credits) + $75 non-refundable application fee. US citizens and permanent residents can apply for financial aid.
Deadline: Apr 9
Program Dates: June 21 – Aug 9
Eligibility: Students who will graduate from high school and enter college in 2025, 2026, or 2027, are at least 16 years old by June 21, 2025, and will not turn 19 years old before July 31, 2025.
Harvard’s 7-Week Secondary School Program is a program where you will take college-level classes in your chosen subject. Some of the available classes are Arabic, machine learning for astronomy, biochemistry, creative writing, and many more. 4 credit hours are mandatory, but you can also choose to take 8 credit hours.
The courses are graded. You can also access additional opportunities and services, such as tutoring and access to the Writing Center. Because this is an online program, you can also access online resources, like libraries.
8. Cornell Precollege Studies’ Summer Online Program
Location: Online
Cost: $1,840 per credit
Deadline: Multiple deadlines depending on the session
Program Dates: Multiple sessions in the summer and winter
Eligibility: Rising/current high school juniors and seniors aged 15 to 19
Cornell Precollege Studies’ Summer Online Program is a credit-bearing program that allows you to take college-level classes alongside undergraduates. Taught by Cornell instructors, you will develop your college study skills as you pursue a course from a range of options, such as architecture and the arts, business and hotel management, health and humanities, international relations, science and technology, social change, veterinary medicine, and more.
Some classes are synchronous, whereas others are asynchronous. You can earn 3 – 12 credits. At the end of the program, you will receive a Cornell transcript. You will also receive 1-on-1 admissions counseling to help you prepare for college applications.
9. CSPA Summer Journalism Workshop
Location: Online or in-person in New York, NY
Cost: $999 for the virtual program. Financial aid is available.
Deadline: Not specified
Program Dates: Multiple sessions in July
Eligibility: Open to all high school students
The Columbia Scholastic Press Association conducts annual journalism workshops for journalism students and advisers. The week-long workshop offers sequences focused on either reporting and writing, editorial leadership, and design.
You can choose from 8 workshops in the summer. The workshop is meant to help you polish your skills and network with like-minded people interested in journalism.
10. Dartmouth’s Regenerative Medicine: Healing with Science
Location: Online
Cost: $1,795. Need-based financial aid is available.
Deadline: June 29, 2025
Program Dates: Multiple cohorts throughout the year.
Eligibility: Students aged 13 years and older
If you are interested in regenerative medicine, Dartmouth’s Regenerative Medicine: Healing with Science will teach you the core principles of tissue engineering, stem cell technology, and organ regeneration in modern medicine. The program design includes interactive lessons, real-world case studies and practical examples to explain how regenerative medicine addresses critical challenges like organ shortages, tissue repair, and disease treatment. You will also understand the application of tools like 3D bioprinting and biomaterials in the field of healthcare.
All this will inform your Final Capstone Project where you will design a solution to a challenge in healthcare or biotechnology. You will present this project as a detailed proposal to demonstrate your learnings from the course. You will be mentored by an expert from the field during the program. Upon completing the program, you will earn a Certificate of Completion from Dartmouth.
If you’re looking for a competitive mentored research program in subjects like data science, machine learning, political theory, biology, and chemistry, consider applying to Horizon’s Research Seminars and Labs! This is a selective virtual research program that lets you engage in advanced research and develop a research paper on a subject of your choosing. Horizon has worked with 1000+ high school students so far and offers 600+ research specializations for you to choose from. You can find the application link here!
Image source – Johns Hopkins University logo
