2.1 At-Home

While Open Educational Resources have been around for over ten years, awareness of its existence and importance has started to surface more and more as a topic of discussion in the education community and specifically at Leeward CC.

According to the College Board, the average undergraduate student should budget between $1,200 and $1,300 for textbooks and supplies each year. That’s as much as 40% of tuition at a two-year community college and 13% at a four-year public institution.

For many students and families already struggling to afford a college degree, that is simply too much – meaning more debt, working longer hours, or making choices that undermine academic success.

Unfortunately, even the proliferation of cost-saving options like used books, textbook rental programs, and e-textbooks is not enough to solve the problem. Publishers undermine these markets by releasing new editions, bundling in single-use pass codes, or including use restrictions. Even more problematic, the price of these textbook options is still determined by the ever-increasing price of a new, printed textbook.

In order to reduce costs for students now, and in the future, we must break free from the traditional textbook market and deliver educational materials through an alternative model. - Open Textbooks: The Billion-Dollar Solution

Read Executive Summary and Introduction (pages 1 - 9), and Conclusion (pages 16 - 17) in "Open Textbooks: The Billion-Dollar Solution".