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2023 Honest Review of Course Hero: Benefits, Features, And Costs

Javiera vega.

• Best Apps And Tools , Reviews

Study Consultant at Gradehacker

Updated June, 2023

Watch our Course Hero Review on our YouTube channel!

Many students were once trying to get through last-minute assignments, piled-up deadlines, unclear college professors’ instructions, and writer’s block. This is why today, we’ll share an honest review of Course Hero !

Getting a degree can be a rewarding experience and a bumpy road for even the most experienced university students. The stress that comes with it can make a simple task like writing an essay a complete nightmare.

The good news is that there are resources available for you , and here at Gradehacker, after many years of helping students find balance, we are happy to come up with this possible solution for you!

But first things first, what’s Course Hero? How legit can a platform like Course Hero be? If you use it, does it include plagiarism-free content? What’s the level of quality?

We are here to answer all concerns!

Let’s review Course Hero and checks its benefits, features, and costs in 2023!

So here we go, let's review Course Hero and checks its benefits, features, and costs in 2023!

You deserve personalized help with your essay.

If Course Hero isn’t enough help to write your essay, see how Gradehacker can deliver a plagiarism-free and quality paper!

What's Course Hero? Features and Benefits

Course Hero is a document-sharing platform centered mostly on previously written content by other students for their college assignments. It was founded in 2006 in Redwood City, California.

There are many great features this website offers to college students:

Document Sharing

• Discussions
• Class notes
• Lab reports

There are many great features this website offers to college students

Plagiarism Detector

As a second feature, we have plagiarism detectors, which are very trustworthy tools that can take any work you do online to a higher quality. It works similarly to the ones Grammarly or Turnitin have. 

If you’d like to know more about how they work and their effectiveness, you should check out our Grammarly review!

Some people are concerned that Course Hero promotes plagiarism and cheating. 

Still, at its core, this website works more like a vast online study group created by former and current students rather than a source of original content that you can present as yours. 

This platform follows an honor code where they clarify that their intentions are for you to improve your classes and expand your education by connecting with their resources. 

When you sign up, you agree to be academically honest while using the platform.

Intended plagiarism will be detected through plagiarism checkers .

To avoid the chance that your professor finds the document familiar because, after all, it was probably written for their class, have in mind that:

• The idea is not to copy from them but more to take inspiration and guidance from others' experiences.
• Course Hero is a great option for students looking for educational materials or struggling with their studies.

24/7 Expert Tutor Assistance

Third feature we have 24/7 Expert Tutor assistance , which is about answering student questions and getting an email when it’s resolved. 

You can write a specific question to an expert tutor in your area of interest, and you’ll get a reply in 15 minutes or less.

It’s especially helpful when you are stuck with a particular subject and need to solve that exact question to continue with your assignment.

Textbook Solutions & Explanations

The fourth feature is the Textbook Solutions & Explanations.

Here, you can get solutions and explanations for different books, activities, and questions. Each book offers exercises and tips. However, you’ll need to pay for a subscription to have full access .

The benefits of these features are that you have multiple options from a wide variety of subjects:

• Statics and Probability

And many more options since they keep adding new books.

Some additional study tools you can take advantage of are:

• AI Homework Help: For instant answers and explanations
• Flashcards: Personalized to your specific needs
• Standardized Tests: From AP exams to graduate school exams, they have information uploaded to help you
• Literature Study Guides: For in-depth analysis through study guides, infographics, and essays about books

Need to Know The Cost of Writing Your Essay?

Read out detailed blog and discover how much it costs to write your essay and the factors behind the pricing.

How Does Course Hero Work?

To gain access to all of these features, there Is a system that works with “unlock points.” But how does this work? Let’s find out!

The unlock system allows you to read and download complete documents and access other features from the sites, such as the 24/7 Expert Tutor assistance. 

There are three ways to obtain unlock points :

• Post your own content
• Rate other people’s submissions
• Subscribing to Course Hero

This is how an average document looks on Course Hero before you unlock it.

The first two methods are totally free and only depend on how many documents you submit or rate on the platform. 

The process of unlocking works by sharing 10 educational resources you’ve created so you can access any 5 files in the library . Keep in mind that your resources will need to be reviewed before gaining access. 

However, keep in mind that this process can get tedious.

Yes, the more content you share and the more ratings you give, the more unlocks you get, but rewards are not proportional to your effort in getting them. This system will definitely be a turn-off when you are in a hurry and out of unlock points.

You can also rate any document in Course Hero like this and get unlock points to see other people’s contributions.

On the other hand , paid subscriptions offer you a more unlimited experience that doesn’t require you to meet any of the conditions mentioned above . 

You can get, see, and download as many documents as you want for a price. You’ll also get between 10 to 40 questions for a 24/7 Expert Tutor.

Can't Write Your Essay With Course Hero?

If Course Hero doesn’t have what you are looking for, with us you’ll get a 100% original paper!

Can't Write Your Essay With CourseHero?

How much does course hero cost.

You can use Course Hero and all its features for free as long as you meet the requirements to get unlocks. Still, it’s a tiresome process, and if you are a regular user, you will get tired of submitting content and ratings at some point.

When this happens, there is always the option of a   paid subscription that offers the following benefits:

• 24/7 homework help from tutors
• Count with course-specific resources
• Access Course Hero's library
• Unlimited access to textbooks
• Upload to study

They offer three types of subscriptions:

• Annual: $9.95 /month or $119.40 charged yearly
• Quarterly: $19.95 /month or $59.85 charged quarterly
• Monthly: $24.95 /month or $24.95 charged monthly

Online tutoring is not available for free users.

While premier members can unlock up to 30 documents per month , you can unlock user questions, access all Textbook Solutions and Explanations from the library, and receive up to 40 tutor questions.

There is no free trial, but there is a   30-day money-back guarantee.

Course Hero also offers a $5.000 Student Scholarship to help you until graduation.

Scribd, Quizlet, and Course Hero: How Similar Are They?

Are the other online learning resources, Scribd and Quizlet , similar to Course Hero? The answer is yes, and no. Let us explain better!

While both have things in common, the levels of content curation and usage vary between each other.

Quizlet is a sharing platform, but users here share their study materials like flashcards, guides, and memory games created through the website. 

In a way, Quizlet and Course Hero can complement their best features but are not a replacement for each other.

It also offers study activities related to the content for specific classes but not documents such as essays or notes.

Scribd is a document-sharing platform that works with some sort of unlock system.

However, it’s not explicitly designed to host content related to college classes.

If a document, PDF, or book passes the screening process guidelines, you will get a free unlock. This brings a quality problem since you will find valuable study guides and completely unrelated content in equal parts.

For example, as long as you have words in a document, no matter if they make sense or are valuable for someone else, they will be approved as “content” by Scribd, and you will get a free unlock.

While on Course Hero, only college-related content is approved for sharing, in Scribd could be any type of content.

Scribd has quite a similar interface and system as Course Hero, but the quality of the content is debatable.

Our Verdict

So, is it worthwhile to use Course Hero for class materials? 

Whether you want the free option or the paid subscription, we believe this website is usually worth your time.

As mentioned before, Course Hero has a free membership, and you can access “unlocks” by adding new content yourself or rating the content of others.  

Unfortunately, this system might not be too convenient if you are struggling with a class or semester and need constant access to new content.

If you are in this position, you might want to opt for memberships that provide the most value, according to Course Hero helpful rating reviews made by students. 

You can also count on step-by-step explanations and get answers to any difficult questions with their online tutors.

Does that sound good? I bet it does, but sometimes, you don’t have enough time to look for other classmates’ notes, summarize them, and make them look coherent. If you are definitely and utterly overwhelmed or just want to plan ahead, you can always look for other options.

Often, Course Hero resources are compared with Chegg Study Pack . So if you want to see alternative options, you can check our Chegg review .

We recommend thinking carefully about it and deciding if Course Hero will be a tool that might help you during your entire degree or just for a challenging class.

An online learning platform is only good as long as it is comfortable to use . If it is too convoluted or requires a high learning curve, students may feel they waste precious time just learning how to access the service.

Luckily, the Course Hero interface and reward system is intuitive, so even the less tech-savvy users will feel at ease.

Course Hero: Taking Your College Assignments To The Next Level

We hope our detailed Course Hero review helped you see whether a study assistance service like this is helpful for you.

In case you are looking for other types of services, platforms like Gradehacker offer you help with your classes or even help to accelerate your degree . If you need a  single essay or stand out on your discussion boards , we are here for you too!

If you want to continue learning more tips on how to make your college life easier , you can read these articles:

7 Best Websites to Find Free College Textbooks in 2023

Best Sites For Scholarly Sources | Websites To Find The Best Academic Sources

How Much Does it Cost to Get Help with Your Class Discussion?

Best 5 Websites For Solving Math Problems

How Much Does it Cost to Write My Essay?

Edubirdie Honest Review 2023 | Everything You Need To Know

Javiera Vega is a Study Consultant and Content Creator for Gradehacker. She has a degree in Education and Literature and is currently working on getting a master’s degree in Linguistics. Even though words, languages, and books are her thing, science and psychology were her hidden passion for many years. Luckily, Gradehacker has allowed her to use all that knowledge by helping many clients with everything they need. Javiera considers herself a proud nerd who likes to learn and read about everything she can find. From movies and comics to microbiology and genetics, every topic is interesting for her. Her curiosity has no limits. Find her on LinkedIn

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Course Hero: Study Aid or Cheating?

It’s hard to know what to think of  Course Hero , a site that declares itself as a “social learning network” where you can “give and get” information.

Conceived by students at Cornell, Course Hero provides access to old tests, homework problems, textbook answers and class notes. It also offers the ability to form study groups where you can share files and exchange ideas. It’s basically a forum where you can put up old schoolwork you’ve done and see the old schoolwork of your peers from your own school and around the nation.

Course Hero isn’t really free. While you can create an account for no cost, you can’t view anything until you pay in one of two ways:

• By posting materials (40 documents = 1 month free)
• By paying a monthly, 6 month, or yearly fee

If you don’t pay, you can still create an account, but you’re only able to see what kind of information you could access to if you did pay. You can’t actually view any of them.

By putting coursework online, Course Hero is hoping to allow students (and faculty) everywhere to become involved in spreading learning and information.

And that’s not all… If Course Hero is news to you, you probably aren’t aware of the many sites similar to Course Hero, including studyblue.com, cramster.com, koofers.com, and gradeguru.com. It’s important to note that Course Hero, though innovative, is not the first of its kind.

And from the looks of it, it definitely won’t be the last.

Student groups, clubs, fraternities, and sororities have collected test files for decades, giving members of those groups a distinct advantage over others. Course Hero and similar websites put everything on the table for everyone, leveling the playing field.

By providing class notes, old exams and more, Course Hero gives students an additional chance to learn material that they didn’t understand the first time a professor taught it. If they didn’t understand a concept in class, had problems on a homework assignment, or missed a lecture, these websites are a chance for redemption and learning.

For faculty, Course Hero gives you the chance to see how students are sharing the information you teach them, and to look at the different ways other professors are teaching similar subjects. You can get ideas, know which tests and homework problems were most difficult and gather tools to better teach your classes.

These websites also promote social development. You can join a study group and meet students in your class you otherwise might not have worked with. You can choose to study through the internet, or meet at a physical table and chairs on campus. In this way, Course Hero allows you to make connections with others who you can help, and who can help you.

The more people Course Hero and similar websites connect, the more students and faculty there could be learning, growing and sharing.

Despite the good things Course Hero claims to offer, the most glaring question is this: Is using Course Hero cheating?

Each of the websites offering these services overtly addresses this question. The answer they all come up with is, of course, No.

Most of the websites have safeguards against what they consider cheating. There are courses of action professor can take if they find their copyrighted information online.  These websites leave it up to professors and universities to define in their honor code what cheating is, and to give that information to the student.

CU’s honor code  states “On my honor as a University of Colorado at Boulder student, I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance on this work.”

The key word is “unauthorized.” How do you define it?

Many teachers define it in their syllabi and it is common knowledge that copying answers and plagiarizing are violations of the Honor Code and considered “unauthorized” assistance. But where is the line? Working in groups often facilitates learning in students, and contributes to the cohesiveness of a class. When working in groups, students often share answers, methods, notes and their understanding—all things that would be shared on Course Hero.

One of the big problems with Course Hero is that if a student wants to cheat, the website offers all the tools they need to do so. It provides a temptation to students who are looking for exam answers and want to cheat in class.

You also can’t track who is using Course Hero. Often, notes are posted anonymously, so the individual who posted them cannot be tracked down. This means that it’s harder to punish those who are blatantly cheating or difficult to tell if the resources available can really be trusted.

Like it or not, Course Hero and similar websites are probably here to stay. They’ve introduced an innovative product that will not stop here, but grow in the future.

The thing to worry about now, is how to address these websites.

Instructors need to be sure to tell their students what will be considered cheating and what won’t. Request that students tell you if they find your information online. Share with students that posting information online may result in harder tests, at the detriment of an instructor’s time and a student’s grade.

If the goal is to have students learn the subject, and looking at Course Hero helps, maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all? Maybe it is useful to try to teach students to use these new resources responsibly instead of banning it from the classroom.

Some other things instructors can do to fight against cheating:

• Keep tests after you hand them back, so students don’t have the chance to upload them to any website.
• Post only answers, and not questions, on CULearn for homework and tests—that way the answers won’t mean as much.
• Give students old tests to study from, so that there is no reason for them to search online. This could help to level the playing field for those who would have cheated and those who never would.
• Give people the opportunity to report cheating anonymously—no one likes to be the ‘tattle-tale’
• Try to give students a reason not to cheat by providing everything they need to perform successfully

The line between getting assistance to study and cheating is sometimes hard to see. Course Hero makes it even more difficult.  While new technologies can provide more opportunities for dishonesty, try using them as a resource or as a reason to teach your students about ethics in education.

Written By: Kate Vander Wiede, CU ’09, ASSETT Staff