Ayn Rand described Objectivism as “a philosophy for living on earth.” This idea is at the heart of the Ayn Rand University, an online school of philosophy whose mission is to educate our students about Objectivism and to provide them with the intellectual, career, and life guidance they need to flourish. The 2024–25 ARU school year features the courses listed on this page.
Live Courses
Live courses are part of the ARU Certificate program, a 28-credit curriculum that typically takes students two years to complete. Entrance into the program as a graded student is by application only, but many live courses are open to auditors. Auditors participate alongside graded students pursuing the ARU Certificate, but auditors do not submit assignments or receive instructor feedback. Live courses feature live classes, but attendance is not required; recordings are made available shortly after a live class concludes.
If you would like to join the ARU Certificate program as a graded student, you must first complete an application. To audit ARU live courses, purchase a 2-quarter or full-year Auditor Pass to gain access to all courses open to auditing in the time frame of the pass. Or you can purchase courses on an a la carte basis.
Flex Courses
Flex courses are previously taught live courses that are available to anyone to take for a grade. They are taken at the student’s own pace and feature recorded lectures, graded assignments and optional live discussions with an ARU instructor. Students have one year from beginning a Flex course to complete it.
- Live
$3,000.00
This is a two-quarter seminar exploring Objectivism in depth. Its goal is to help you learn how to better understand and “chew” various principles of Objectivism and philosophical issues more generally.
- Flex
$490.00
In this third course, we will explore Objectivism’s approach to concept-formation, definitions, logic, and the relationship between reason and emotions. We begin with Rand’s take on the problem of universals and the process of concept formation.
- Flex
$490.00
The final course in this four-course track focuses on moral virtues, happiness, the rejection of force, and Objectivism’s view of art. We will discuss the virtues of independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, and pride, and relate them back to the “master” virtue: rationality.
- Live
$1,500.00
One of the most influential thinkers of all time. The political movement for which millions were ready to kill, and die for. Welcome to the ARU course on Karl Marx and communism! Together, we will get a firm grip on the basic ideas of Marx around capitalism, history, and human nature.
- Live
$3,000.00
This course teaches the basic principles and methods of objective communication. We’ll treat communication as a science, as a skill that has certain objective principles that can be learned and applied to the improvement of one’s work.
- Live
$1,500.00
Goethe’s dramatic poem Faust is a monumental work of literature that takes the reader on a journey “from Heaven through the World to Hell.” In exquisite and memorable verse, it tells the story of a Medieval scholar who—frustrated with the limitations of human knowledge—enters into a bargain with the Devil in order to experience “all that is the lot of human kind.”
- Flex
$650.00
To understand Rand’s distinctive worldview and to learn her new philosophy, Objectivism, there is no better place to start than with careful consideration of the content and meaning of her novels, which contain the richest treatment of central principles of Objectivism available.
- Flex
$650.00
To understand Rand’s distinctive worldview and to learn her new philosophy, Objectivism, there is no better place to start than with careful consideration of the content and meaning of her novels, which contain the richest treatment of central principles of Objectivism available.
- Live
$3,000.00
This course will trace the development of optics, electricity, and magnetism from their rudimentary beginnings as unrelated areas of study all the way up to their surprising integration in the work of James Clerk Maxwell.
- Live
$3,000.00
To understand Rand’s philosophy one must give careful consideration to the content and meaning of her novels. This course provides a powerful corrective to a tendency among students of Objectivism to neglect Rand’s fiction in their study of the philosophy.
- Live
$1,500.00
This course, led by Nikos Sotirakopoulos, will follow the intellectual and political developments of the Left from the 1960s until today.
- Flex
$490.00
This is the first in a four-course track exploring Objectivism as a system of philosophy. This course focuses on Objectivism’s distinctive conception of philosophy and its role in human life, including what a proper philosophical methodology looks like.
- Live
$3,000.00
Ayn Rand embraced Aristotelian logic but took it much further. This course reviews the three most important ideas of Aristotelian logic and then focuses on the new principles of proper thinking developed by Ayn Rand.
- Live
$1,500.00
This course explores Karl Popper’s “critical rationalist” philosophy. We will examine and challenge the assumptions that lead Popper to conclude that induction is a myth.
- Track
$1,500.00
Through this four-course track, you’ll gain a better understanding of the principles of Objectivism, including some of its advice about proper philosophical methodology. The cash value is that philosophy can become more fully an aid to your own life, thinking, work and happiness.
- Live
$3,000.00
To understand Rand’s philosophy one must give careful consideration to the content and meaning of her novels. This course provides a powerful corrective to a tendency among students of Objectivism to neglect Rand’s fiction in their study of the philosophy.
- Live
$1,500.00
This course offers a moral defense of finance and financiers. It methodically examines the vital role they serve in the economy. And it explores the philosophical ideas that make the attacks on financial markets possible and why the profit motive is the only moral and practical motive for financial transactions.
- Live
$1,500.00
The Man Who Laughs, according to Ayn Rand, was the best novel ever written by Victor Hugo, her favorite novelist. Together, we will see why she was right.
- Live
$3,000.00
Writing is a skill, a creative activity. As such, it cannot be learned primarily by reading a textbook or listening to lectures. One learns to write by writing . . . and writing and writing and writing. This course builds on the skills acquired and lessons learned in Introduction to Writing.
- Track
$1,200.00
Rand held that art, particularly literature, was indispensable in depicting a moral ideal, her own new moral ideal emphatically included. Through examining Rand’s fiction we will learn about her new vision of the ideal.
- Pass
$2,500.00 – $5,000.00
Buy a 2-quarter or full year auditing pass and gain access to all courses eligible for auditing.
- Flex
$490.00
In this second course, we focus on the core of the Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology. We will explore the distinctions between the metaphysically given and the man-made, the axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity, and their implications for understanding reality.
- Live
$1,500.00
Taking your life seriously requires taking work seriously. In this course, you will learn the principles and attitudes that will guide you in your work, your career, and in the world of business.
- Live
$1,500.00
In this course, we will examine contemporary philosophical perspectives on work and labor through the 20th century to the present, contrasting important themes from academic philosophers’ work with that of Rand.