Premium courses and e-learning should be FREE

SteveLavoie

Only the most strongly motivated person would pay entirely for their certification... specially higher level certification like CISSP, GIAC and so on. 

Also, if your company dont pay.. ask yourself if they are the best company to stay and grow. 

Danielm7

Some certs, I'd agree, mostly really the SANS/GIAC stuff, and even then I've done work study a few times and found it very worthwhile. If a cert can mean a new job, there are not a lot of bad deals for the ROI. How many people here have we seen say "I got the CISSP and then got a new job offer because of it for 30K more!" in cases like that the <1K total cost is almost nothing in comparison. 

Even entry level ones, a couple hundred bucks to pickup an A+ and you might get a helpdesk job that is double whatever retail job you're working right now? Sounds like a bargain to me. 

beads

I don't pay for any training and all I need is the outline to get me started so its already "Free" to me. Not sure why you think your entitled to other people labor presented to you for your benefit but suspect you won't be as gracious when it comes time to pass on your knowledge to someone else.

Good luck with it as this model has been tried before - and failed.

- b/eads

Athi123

Premium courses and e-learning should be accessible to everyone for free, promoting equal opportunities for personal and professional growth. Education is a fundamental right, and free access to high-quality learning resources can empower individuals, bridge skill gaps, and foster innovation, ultimately contributing to a more knowledgeable and equitable global community.

beads

Athi123 said:

Premium courses and e-learning should be accessible to everyone for free, promoting equal opportunities for personal and professional growth. Education is a fundamental right, and free access to high-quality learning resources can empower individuals, bridge skill gaps, and foster innovation, ultimately contributing to a more knowledgeable and equitable global community.

Certs and training in general are investments in your own career, not you company to invest tens of thousands of dollars into to benefit your next employer.

Add to that the IT job market is flush with far too many analysts and too few positions. Stories of hearing 40 dollars an hour for senior practitioners working downtown Chicago where parking will easily cost you 100 dollars a day have become far too common, at least here in Illinois. At that rate, you'd have to take a loan out just to work for them.

Certs? Nice to have, not necessary.

- BEads

JDMurray

beads said:

Certs? Nice to have, not necessary.

A cert can mean the difference in you being chosen from a long list of candidates for a first-round interview and being passed on by a hiring manager. CISSP and PMP are prime examples of certs earned by a lot of your job competition. Do you want your resend not to have a common cert that a lot of your competitor's resumes do have?

techeducation

If knowledge should be free, should the work done from that knowledge also be free?

If you learn cybersecurity for free, should you also work for free as a cybersecurity professional? If not, why is it okay to charge for your skills but not okay for an expert to charge for the time it took them to structure that knowledge?

Imagine a world-class chef spends 20 years perfecting a dish. They write a book teaching you how to make it in just 12 weeks instead of 20 years.

Now imagine someone walks up and says,

‘Why should I pay you? The knowledge of food should be free.’

But the chef isn’t charging for the existence of food—they’re charging for the time, mistakes, and expertise that saved you decades of trial and error.

Knowledge is already free. The shortcut is what costs money.

If you truly believe knowledge should be free, here’s a challenge:

1. Quit your job (since you got that knowledge for free, your work should be free too).
2. Spend the next 10 years mastering a skill for free.
3. Then teach everyone for free for the rest of your life.

No? Not fair or practical? Okay, well, if you wouldn’t do that, why expect it from others?

The truth is, knowledge isn’t scarce, but time is. People pay for knowledge because they value their time.

Those who don’t want to pay for ‘knowledge’? They’re free to take the long road. But they don’t get to expect (much less, demand) that experts pave the shortcut for them for free.