Ayn Rand described Objectivism as “a philosophy for living on earth.” This idea is at the heart of ARU, the Ayn Rand Institute’s 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.
$3,000.00
This is Part I of the Intensive Seminar on Objectivism, a challenging and intensive course that looks at Objectivism as a system of philosophy and how some of Rand’s key ideas compare and contrast with those of other philosophers. Parts I and II of the Intensive Seminar compress what was a two-year course into a single year.
$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.
$1,500.00
This course, led by Nikos Sotirakopoulos, will follow the intellectual and political developments of the Left from the 1960s until today.
$1,500.00
Ayn Rand’s philosophy is a powerful framework for educators. This seminar is a deep dive into what she said directly about education, which includes both profound critiques of the status quo and positive conceptions of how to support developing minds. The discussion will include a special emphasis on relating Rand’s ideas to the history and present state of the field.
$1,500.00
In this course we will continue our examination of key works and developments in the history, art, and literature of Ancient Greek civilization through the first century of the so-called “Classical Age” (c.490-323 BCE), from the end of the Peisistratid tyranny and birth of Athenian Democracy (c.514-508 BCE) and the Persian Invasions (490, 480-79 BCE) down through the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) and its immediate aftermath.
$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.
$1,500.00
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.
$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.
$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.
$1,500.00
This course traces the development of man’s understanding of motion and gravitation, starting with the earliest astronomical observations of pre-Greek civilizations, and culminating in the achievements of Isaac Newton. How did mankind progress from a state of total ignorance about the stars, planets, Sun, and Moon to our first scientific understanding of these bodies and the laws that govern their behavior?
$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.
$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.
$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.
$2,500.00 – $5,000.00
Buy a 2-quarter or full-year auditing pass and gain access to all courses open to auditors.
$3,000.00
Ayn Rand called capitalism the unknown ideal. But what makes it an ideal–and why has that ideal remained unknown? In this course, we’ll examine the philosophy, history, and economics of capitalism–and above all the debate over capitalism’s morality.
This pass is your ARU tuition and is only available to newly admitted students. It will automatically reflect any financial aid that has been granted.
$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.
$990.00
This course will examine the foundational principles of Ayn Rand’s moral philosophy while addressing core questions that her theory typically raises. Its major topics will be: the foundations of value; the objectivity of value (in contrast with intrinsicist and subjectivist conceptions); survival “versus” flourishing; the causal character of moral guidance; the role of values and virtues; egoism. Principal readings will be essays and excerpts from Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff, supplemented with essays by other scholars of Objectivism.
$1,500.00
In this course we will examine key works and developments in the history, art, and literature of Ancient Greek civilization as it grows and flourishes during the so-called “Archaic Period” from the middle of the 8th century to the end of the 6th century BCE.
$1,750.00
Through this course, 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.
$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.
$1,500.00
Light and the faculty of vision have been subjects of considerable interest from antiquity on. This course will trace the growth in our understanding of the nature of light from the first, groping ideas of the Ancient Greeks up through the work of Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Huygens, Young and others.
$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.
$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.
$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.”
$3,000.00
This is Part II of the Intensive Seminar on Objectivism, a challenging and intensive course that looks at Objectivism as a system of philosophy and how some of Rand’s key ideas compare and contrast with those of other philosophers. Parts I and II of the Intensive Seminar compress what was a two-year course into a single year.
$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.
$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.