Recommendations on where to learn coding for total beginners?

If you're an undergrad, find someone who knows - ask him/her to crash course you the basics - do a project or participate in a beginner challenge with some friends - take related modules to build foundation. You have time to explore.

if you've already graduated, depending on whether you want to (1) just automate some stuff (2) a career switch into something like a data analyst or business analyst (3) become a software engineer, regardless free platforms will only take you so far. Because what you lack is a real problem to solve, be it for yourself or for someone else or for a company, so you'll mostly likely (based on personal experience when I first started) try to learn everything without remembering anything or knowing how to really solve anything.

Hence, I would still choose to start with the free/cheaper platforms, actually there are some really legit stuff on youtube for free, first to test water, and then

a) enter into a full-time course like general assembly (never enrolled before but heard reviews are pretty good, can check it out)

b) find someone who has gone through it to teach you what you absolutely need to know to deliver some real work (will be difficult to find but is the fastest way tho)

c) or just simply throw yourself into the deep end by entering a coding challenge (when you already have some background and want to take it further)

From there, it'll be much easier to pick things up because now you know what you don't know and what you need to pick up.

good luck :)

Codecademy is really good I last time use, but limited.

But for beginners I think YouTube is also a good place. They give explanations while they do the coding.