In The Public Interest: The $2 Billion Opportunity for Affordable Textbooks and How Colleges Can Make the Most of It

The Departments of Labor and Education recently announced a monumental $2 billion grant program to revitalize job training programs at 2-year colleges. This historic investment aims to harness innovation and technology to boost graduation rates so that more students can successfully enter the workforce.

The kicker: it could also make textbooks more affordable in the process.

Every college student knows that textbook costs are out of control. The average student spends $900 per year, and prices have been rising four times the rate of inflation. For community college students, textbooks are comparable to 72% of tuition according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- a significant chunk of their overall expenses. The root of the problem is that publishers have complete control over pricing: students need to buy their books to succeed in school, and industry mergers and buyouts have virtually eliminated competition. To get costs under control, we need an affordable alternative to challenge publishers' stranglehold on the market.

That's exactly what the $2 billion grant program could do.

Here's how: All materials produced under the grants -- including textbooks, curricula and software -- must be licensed to the public and made freely available online to read, download, customize, distribute and print. This provision is not only a big win for the principle of taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded resources, but it also ensures the grant program will feed the already growing supply of high-quality, remixable, sharable publicly licensed content known as "open" educational resources.

These "open" educational resources could result in tremendous savings for college students, especially those at 2-year colleges. A recent U.S. PIRG study found that "open" textbooks reduce costs 80% over traditional books, which translates to more than $10,000 in savings for the typical 100-student class. Also, open textbooks solve challenges associated with traditional e-books by giving students the flexibility to choose between print, digital and self-printed formats, all at a low cost.

And "open" educational resources are gaining momentum already. More than 1,000 college classes use open textbooks, and student PIRG activists have organized 2,500 professors to sign a declaration of support. With more instructors willing to adopt these open resources, sustainable models are beginning to evolve. For example, the startup company Flat World Knowledge publishes free, open textbooks while still making a profit! This $2 billion investment could supercharge innovation and help open resources gain even greater traction in the market to drive textbook costs down for good.

This is why the $2 billion grant is an extraordinary opportunity to improve - if not solve - a major financial challenge for millions of college students.

But, it's up to colleges to make it happen.

On behalf of students across the country, we call on colleges to use this grant program to make textbooks affordable in the process of improving workforce training. Proposals for the first $500 million in grants are due on April 21st and to potential applicants, we recommend the following three actions:

1. Colleges should take a step back and look for other institutions with compatible workforce needs and goals. By collaborating -- or at least coordinating with others, colleges can cover more ground and ultimately get more out of the grants. Imagine having world-class open resources for the top 100, or even 1000 most common community college courses.
2. Colleges should leverage the funds to reduce textbook costs for the maximum number of students. For example, prioritizing improvements to high-enrollment courses with expensive books could increase student success twofold: by creating more effective materials, and by relieving financial pressure. College Algebra would be a good place to start; it's part of many career-oriented programs, and the average textbook costs a whopping $162.47.
3. Adoption should be a top priority. The educational and cost-saving benefits of open resources can only reach students if instructors adopt them. Colleges should make plans with other institutions and organizations to ensure their work is promoted elsewhere, and to do their part to promote other materials locally.

For more information on the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grants Program, see the Solicitation for Grant Applications.

 

Follow Nicole Allen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/txtbks

Comments

[ecotextbooks]

12:12 AM on 02/04/2011

A really awesome place to find textbooks for the cheapest would be a search engine based website that just looked up textbooks. Luckily there is a site that does just that for you! It's called http://www.GreenTextbooks.com , this semester I ended up saving about 300 bucks looking for my books on that site. You should see if it can help you out. I know your classes have all ready started but if your still trying to figure out how you're going to pay for these books you might be able to save yourself some money and it usually only takes about a week to get your books.

[Democommon Sense]

03:25 PM on 02/03/2011

What baffles is me is why State Universities don't partner to create shared textbook offerings. These could be done in an open text book format. Each partnered University could dedicate to creating and updating a particular subject matter. Perhaps do so on the rankings of that colleges departments. So the University of Arizona submits MIS material while a higher rated Economics department submits and updates relevant course material. Use a minimal pricing structure to access them online or print them. Use that money to pay for increased TA's and staff to publish them. I just can't understand why in such a collabrative academic society we have no collabrative publishing.

[Stella Puckett]

08:57 PM on 02/02/2011

My history teacher complained that the most expensive book he bought while he was in school
was $26.00 - which to Him was outrageous. When I was buying for this semester's book list each
textbook ranged from $120-170 (used price). Solely buying textbooks was like putting a down
payment on a Ford Focus. My professors require the books for their courses, so unless I'm willing
to re-arrange my schedule to fit the Salt Lake Community College Library hours to rent textbook,
my options are limited to rummaging the internet for out of date textbooks or paying the fullprice
from school vendors.

[Democommon Sense]

03:21 PM on 02/03/2011

I would suggest half.com I save a lot of money using this format. Also the new provisions requiring posted ISBN numbers helps the searching process. Just be sure to stay on top of it early as Media Mail shipping can take a week in some cases.

[Mountain Momma]

03:08 PM on 02/02/2011

As a professor, I am horrified by the cost of textbooks. It's ridiculous. I try to stick with older editions, even when new ones come out, if there's no change to the subject matter. But I did that this spring, and found that the bookstore ordered the new edition. I was not a happy camper. Not only did students have higher costs because there were no used books available, but I used the old edition for my planning! Chapter numbers, page numbers, they're all off. I feel bad for my students, because while I keep an eye on costs I know other faculty don't have a clue what their assigned texts cost.

For one class next fall, I think I'm assigning all journal articles for reading. They're available in the library and they're more up to date than a textbook anyway. Just in the 10 years I've been in higher ed, the prices have skyrocketed. And that doesn't get passed on to the author; they get literally pennies per book (new authors may only get a percentage of a penny for their books sold).

[Bill Buxton]

03:46 PM on 02/01/2011

Thanks for the promotion of open textbooks and advocating the use of grant money to lower the costs of textbooks for the benefit of all. An important point to note is that some business models may seem to advocate open textbooks, but are really a modification of traditional publisher models. For example, to the best of my knowledge Flat World Knowledge's textbooks are free to read online, but to redistribute the contents (as allowed by their Creative Commons license) they charge fees to download the digital copy. By the terms of their Creative Commons license anyone should be able to freely distribute and remix the contents as long as they give proper attribution, don't sell it, and share-alike. But the PDFs are "locked" and they do not offer a source text. There is nothing wrong with their business model and business plan, but they are not in compliance with the terms (and spirit) of Creative Commons license they use. Granted, their prices are lower (for now) than traditional textbooks but their business model would not comply with the labor grant noted in the article. There are many other sources where the text is free to read online.

[Deena Samii]

02:11 PM on 02/01/2011

This is awesome. At City College of San Francisco we have low tuition but our textbook costs are usually more than our tuition!! At City, we're working with the Student PIRGs to talk to professors and encourage them to consider open-textbooks for their classes. NOW we can give show them that they can apply for a grant to write one - our instructors are going to be super stoked!

[DragonKB]

08:33 PM on 01/31/2011

Great article Nicole. The tireless advocacy of you and everyone who has believed in the power of open educational resources from the beginning is really paying off. Open textbooks in particular are a way to remove cost from education without sacrificing quality or cutting funding for the activity of education itself. Expanding access through permanent reduction in total student cost makes us all better off.
Proof positive you can deliver top-notch quality open textbooks has been demonstrated over and over. If someone is looking for inspiration, this past December the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association selected a group of open textbooks from a company you mentioned, Flat World Knowledge, to their 2010 Outstanding Business Reference Sources list. (http://www.rusq.org/2010/12/29/outstanding-business-reference-sources-the-2010-selection-of-recent-titles/) I'm hopeful the thoughtfully constructed guidelines of this grant will generate more open educational resources of similar quality, expanding educational access and bringing us closer to our national educational goals.
Thanks again and keep up the great work. The goal of having "world-class open resources for the top 100, or even 1000 most common ... college courses" - community or otherwise - is in reach.

[Cat Tappert]

06:37 PM on 01/31/2011

At the University of Maryland, the average amount spent on textbooks every year is actually slightly above the $900 average. Today-- in three hours, in the freezing cold-- students stopped at an Open Textbooks table and reported a total of over $36,500 in textbook expenditures!

Students need to talk to their professors, deans, and SGA representatives about Open Textbooks and about the very real financial burden textbooks have become for students!