The heraldic seal of Starvard University

A free university. Open to everyone, everywhere.

Starvard.

113 real courses. Zero dollars. No applications, no tuition, no deadlines, no debt. One of the largest free universities on the internet, and class is always in session.

No application. No account. No cookie wall. One click and you're in a course.

The Starvard campus at golden hour: ivory halls, a clock tower, and students crossing the green with their books

Starvard Radio

The university, read out loud.

Every course, every book, every article at Starvard, read to you in a calm studio voice, one after another. Press play and go for a walk. School comes with you.

▶ Listen now

Free, like everything here. Nothing plays until you press the button.

On the radio

124 THINGS TO HEAR
How AI WorksCourse · 14 lessons▶
The Money Index CardCourse · 9 lessons▶
Alice's Adventures in WonderlandBook · Lewis Carroll · with chapters▶
A Christmas CarolBook · Charles Dickens · with chapters▶
Positive PsychologyCourse · 11 lessons▶
Hello WorldArticle · The Starvard Blog▶

Plus all 113 courses, every book in the library, and every article. Pick one and it plays.

The Commons

The world's first university with an official Discord.

A university is not just courses. It is the people you meet between them. Our Discord is Starvard's campus green: always open, always friendly, and built for the students who show up.

Get sorted into a house

Join the world's first online fraternity and the sorting hat places you in a house with your people. Houses read together, compete together, and look out for each other.

Every topic has a room

All 113 topics get a channel. Stuck on a lesson at 2am? Ask the room. Someone, somewhere, is awake and happy to help.

Read-alongs and radio nights

The Masters Library comes alive in voice: group read-alongs, Starvard Radio listening nights, and book clubs that actually finish the book.

Points count there too

House points, reading streaks, and friendly rivalries. Your Starvard Points follow you from the lessons to the green.

The Fraternities

Real fraternities. Inside a Discord.

Other universities keep their fraternities behind gates and tuition bills. Starvard has the world's first fraternities that live entirely online, open to every student on Earth, free forever. When you join the Discord, you do not just get a username. You get sorted.

The sorting is simple, and a little bit magic. You answer three short questions, the sorting hat weighs your answers, and you are placed in one of Starvard's four fraternities. Your house role appears next to your name, your colors are yours, and your common room unlocks. From that moment on, you have people.

Harbor House

The readers and the sailors. Calm, deep, and always mid-book. Harbor hosts the read-alongs and keeps the library lights on.

Lantern House

The night owls and the helpers. Lantern answers the 2am questions and keeps a light on for every timezone on Earth.

Summit House

The builders and the climbers. Summit turns courses into projects, ships them, and races every house up the points board.

Hearth House

The hosts. Hearth runs the radio nights and the book clubs, and keeps the warmest room on campus. Nobody eats alone in Hearth.

Fraternities at Starvard run on one rule: look out for each other. Houses read together, study together, and compete together for house points and the House Cup, awarded every season to the house that learned the most and helped the most. There is no hazing, no dues, and no gatekeeping. The only way to lose standing in a Starvard fraternity is to be unkind, and the fastest way to gain it is to help somebody learn.

And the traditions are already forming: Sorting Night when new students arrive. Radio Night under the stars. Book clubs that actually finish the book. And Finals Week Shelter, when every house keeps its common room open all night, with cocoa and company.

Join the Starvard Discord

The doors are open. The sorting hat is warmed up. Come get your house.

113

full courses, live now

$0

tuition. Forever. For everyone.

9

topics, from AI to sailing

🕐 24/7

always open. No semesters.

The front door

New here? Start with these five.

Every university has a first day. Ours takes about ten minutes. These five courses are where most students begin: money, machines, happiness, the fine print, and the habits that hold it all together.

The catalog

Nine topics. One campus.

Starvard is organized like a real university, because it is one. Pick a topic, wander its halls, take anything you like. There are no prerequisites and no one will ever check.

Watch and listen

Made to be watched. Made to be heard.

We love audio and video players, so we put them on our content wherever we can. We try to put as much video and audio on everything as possible, because some ideas land the moment you see them, and some the moment you hear them.

Video lessons with captions. Audio read-alongs that read the page to you while you follow along. All of it plays right here, on our own players, built for learning instead of for keeping you scrolling.

Video · A lesson at StarvardCaptions on
0:002:56

Press play. The words follow the lesson here, line by line.

Listen to this lessonAudio read-along · follows the text as it plays

Our own players. No autoplay, no recommendations, no ads. The lesson, and nothing else.

The Masters Library

Taught by the Masters. The greatest teachers who ever lived.

Every expensive university on Earth builds its courses on the same shelf of books. At Starvard, the shelf itself is free. Read the originals in our Clear Reader, beautiful on a phone, with free audio for every book. The first ten classics are on the shelf today. One hundred are coming.

Also on the shelf: Homer · Dante · Seneca · Epictetus · Laozi · Montaigne · Frederick Douglass · Charles Dickens · Mark Twain · Thoreau · Melville

Enter the Masters Library >

Admissions

How it works. Three steps. Zero gatekeepers.

Other universities ask for essays, transcripts, and four years of your income. We ask for your curiosity. That is the whole application.

1

Pick a course

Browse the nine schools or the full catalog below. If it sounds interesting, it is for you. That is the entire admissions standard.

2

Learn at your pace

Every course is written to be finished, not just started. Read it in an evening, or take a year. The campus never closes and nobody takes attendance.

3

Take another one

There are 113. Students rarely stop at one, and since tuition is zero, the only cost of a second degree is a few more evenings.

The heraldic seal of Starvard University

Why free

Education is a kindness. So we give it away.

Knowledge used to be locked behind gates, and the gates charged rent. Starvard exists because we think a person who wants to learn should simply be allowed to. Every course here is written carefully, taught plainly, and priced at zero, permanently. No ads in the classroom. No upsell at graduation. Just the learning.

The Starvard Promise

Seven rules. We will never break them.

Every feature, page, and partnership at Starvard is tested against these seven rules. They are what make the design world class: not how it looks, but what it refuses to do. If a rule ever changes, we will say so right here, in public, with the reason.

2 taps · 3 seconds

Our “right there” test: a first-time visitor on a phone reaches the lesson they wanted and starts learning within two taps and three seconds. If a page fails the test, the page gets fixed, not the test.

FREE

Free forever.

Every course, book, video, and audio file. No paywalls, trials, or upsells, ever.

OPEN

No login required.

Nothing needs an account. Your progress and bookmarks live on your own device.

CALM

No pop-ups, no interruptions.

No modals, newsletter prompts, chat bubbles, autoplay, or cookie walls. Nothing covers the page unless you tapped for it.

PRIVATE

No ads, no tracking.

No advertising, no third-party scripts, no selling or sharing of data. Only anonymous page counts.

TOGETHER

Everything on the page.

A lesson’s text, video, audio, and diagrams live side by side. You never hunt for them.

HONEST

We say what this is.

Not accredited. No degrees promised. Much of the content is AI-assisted, and we tell you so, right on the page.

FAST

Light, fast, everywhere.

Small pages and light images that load in a blink, on an old phone and a slow connection alike.

Honest answers

Questions. Asked straight, answered straight.

Is it really free?

Yes. All 113 courses, the whole catalog, forever. There is no premium tier, no trial that expires, and no credit card form hiding anywhere. Free means free.

Do I need to apply or sign up?

No. There is no application, no account, and no admissions office to impress. Click a course and begin. You are already accepted. You were accepted before you arrived.

Is Starvard accredited? Will I get a degree?

No, and we will never pretend otherwise. Starvard is a free university for learning, not a credential mill. You will not leave with a diploma. You will leave knowing how taxes, contracts, code, and your own mind work. We think that trade favors you.

Who writes the courses?

The Starvard faculty at The Studio, the team behind E2. Every course is written to be clear, kind, and finishable, the way we would want to be taught. One elective, Universe Building 101, is taught by our founder, Dave Dlaney. Comedy 101 is taught by Marty, who insisted on academic freedom.

Why 101 for everything?

Because everybody starts somewhere, and the beginning is the most important part. Master the 101s and the rest of any subject gets dramatically easier. Also, honestly, it keeps the catalog tidy.

The full catalog

All 113 courses. By topic.

Every course at Starvard, listed in full. By topic: Business & Money (20) · Technology & AI (19) · Mind & Life (24) · Career & Craft (14) · Health & Body (6) · Home & Outdoors (10) · Arts & Wonder (9) · Languages (3) · Society & Play (8)

Languages 3 courses

French 101 · German 101 · Spanish 101

Only at Starvard

A free university that plays like a game.

School should feel like progress, not paperwork. Finish a read-along for +10. Answer the lesson question for +25. Watch yourself climb.

One student's climb

2,750 Starvard Points · Scholar
W1W2W3W4W5W6W7

2,750 of 5,000 points to the next rank: Starvard Fellow. Every finished lesson, course, and master adds up. This could be your card.

The ranks

Freshman0
Sophomore25
Junior60
Senior120
Scholar250

★ Your points live here. Finish a lesson to start counting: every lesson, course, and master you finish adds up, and rank by rank, so do you.

The Starvard team in cartoon style: five friends together in the workshop

Cartoon Mode

Any classic, illustrated in one tap.

Same great words, drawn world. Frankenstein was never this friendly. Drawn by the same five friends who built the place.

Open the Clear Reader ›

The Starvard Promise

Education should open doors. Not put up gates.

Knowledge belongs to everyone. That’s why Starvard is free, open, and built around the joy of learning. Forever.

Start learning ↗