Hey Jay,
I do believe you have come to the right place. Have we got some plugins for you! 🙂 First, let me suggest that you try our free The Events Calendar plugin and see if that works on your site. If you’d like to upgrade to get features like recurring events and other views, then take a look at our Events Calendar PRO plugin.
As far as accepting payment for the courses, we have several options. Any of our ticketing plugins would probably do the trick. So I’d recommend that you take a look at them and see what payment gateways they offer and which ones will work for you. My standard recommendation is that if you’ve got an existing relationship with Eventbrite, go with them. Otherwise, if you are selling, or thing you ever will sell, physical products, take a look at WooCommerce Ticket. If you believe you’ll be only digital (and tickets sold for courses would fit here) then look at our EDD Tickets plugin. Nothing wrong with the other ticketing solutions either. They’re just newer to our stable.
Does that make sense? Can I answer any other questions?
– Julie