How Much is a Software Engineering Course?

The cost of a software engineering course varies widely, depending on what type of school you choose and the length of the course. College and universities are the most expensive way to learn software engineering. Professional development training centers are not cheap but cost much less than a bachelor's degree. On-demand subscription courses are a less expensive alternative but have their drawbacks. You can find free classes and tutorials on the Internet, but this can be a long and convoluted way to learn software engineering.

College Degrees

Colleges and universities offer software engineering courses as part of a computer science or information technology degree. A bachelor's degree takes four to five years to complete and costs around $50,000 at a state school and $200,000 for a private college. Some schools offer extension classes that include software development certificates, which can be completed in several months to a year. U. C. Berkley Extension offers a course for $5,000 and Boston Univeristy has a graduate certificate that takes a year to complete and costs $15,720.

Professional Development Programs

Classes from professional development or training programs, like Noble Desktop, vary widely from school to school. A three-day introductory Web Development with HTML & CSS class includes eighteen hours of instruction for $975. Noble's Software Engineering Certificate course costs $10,995 and runs for six months. The Python Developer Certificate includes 138 hours of instruction for $4,995. Thinkful offers a full-time web development course for $16,000 and General Assembly offers a 12-week Software Engineering Immersive for $16,450. These are either in-person or live online classes with a live instructor in the classroom or remote over a platform like Zoom.

On-Demand Subscription Courses

On-demand subscription courses tend to be less expensive than in-person and live online sessions. These are pre-recorded classes that you can watch according to your schedule. Subscriptions vary in cost, but they often include a free trial period. The business social media platform LinkedIn offers LinkedIn Learning with thousands of classes on many different topics for $29.99 a month or $239.88 a year for an individual. The subscription becomes active after a one-month free trial. Coursera costs $59 per month or $399 per year with a one-week free trial. Skillshare also offers a one-month free trial and a monthly membership for $32 or an annual membership for $168. The downside of on-demand classes is that you don't have a live instructor.

Free Resources

There are many free videos, podcasts, and blogs about software engineering online. This kind of content can help you get an idea of what web development is and how it works. Noble Desktop offers many free videos on its website, including Intro to React or Intro to Node.js.

While these free resources can provide an overview, this is not a fast or efficient way to learn a new tech skill. Taking a class with an experienced instructor will give you more direct training in coding and save you from wandering around the Internet in search of information. If you are a complete beginner, an introductory class can make learning software development skills much faster. 

Learn Software Engineering Skills with Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop's Software Engineering Certificate can give you the skills you need to start a new career in the software development industry. This program is divided into four sections: front end development, React Development, and Django (Python) Development. In this program, you will learn the most pivotal skills needed to secure a career in software and web development. The assignments in the course are designed to help you create a portfolio of projects, and the course also includes interview preparation, practice responding to common interview questions, how to polish your resume and LinkedIn profile, and tips for applying to jobs. 

Noble's Full Stack Web Development Certificate covers developing every aspect of a digital application or webpage. You’ll learn how to program the visual appearance of a web application (the front end) and the infrastructure that allows it to function (the back end) to create complete webpages. In this course, you’ll learn how to use programming languages like HTML/CSS and JavaScript to program memorable, interactive webpages. You’ll also use the MERN tech stack (MongoDB, Express.js, React, and Node.js) to add databases, APIs, AWS and other server environments, and interactivity for those web applications. The Full-Stack Web Development Certificate provides students with a robust programming education that can help them break into the in-demand world of web development, software engineering, and computer science.

This is a project-oriented course that teaches students how to code a website from scratch. By the end of the course, you’ll have developed a portfolio of working web applications that you can take with you onto the job market. This course also includes portfolio and job search help. You can also attend Noble's SQL and WordPress Bootcamps for free as part of this certificate course.

If you prefer, you can take these Noble classes included in the certificates one at a time. Web Development with HTML & CSS covers building websites with HTML & CSS; creating multi-page websites with text, images, and graphics; styling with CSS; and uploading files using FTP. 

Advanced HTML & CSS includes important CSS concepts like positioning, advanced selectors, and relative type sizing. You will also learn to work with multiple background images, transparent color using RGBA, CSS gradients, and shadows. The course also covers creating animated effects with CSS transitions and transforms.

Flexbox, Grid, and Bootstrap covers laying out and aligning website content with CSS Flexbox. Learn CSS Grid to layout websites and Bootstrap to build layouts quickly.

JavaScript for Front End teaches you to make dynamic and engaging websites with JavaScript and GreenSock. Learn the basics of JavaScript and how to use free pre-made JavaScripts to add functionality. Create animated slideshows and build animated image enlargers.

Noble's Python Programming Bootcamp covers built-in data types and their behavior and Control Flow Statements, the programming essentials used across many languages. You’ll also learn how to professionally structure your programs and solve real-world challenges by creating objects in Object-Oriented Programming. In addition to covering these core programming concepts, we’ll also discuss the most common coding interview questions and demonstrate the best programming practices used by professionals. Throughout this course, you’ll practice these new skills by working on programming exercises with instructor guidance. By the end of this course, you’ll have a portfolio of projects and code samples on GitHub to show to employers.