The high cost of textbooks has become a serious obstacle to the affordability of a college education. The textbook market is rigged so that publishers can generate huge profits and engage in bad practices at students’ expense.
Fortunately, we have solutions to this problem, most notably in the form of “open textbooks”— high-quality books that are available online for free or for a very low cost in print. With solutions like these, we can break the publishers’ stranglehold on the market and help make higher education more accessible to everyone.
Through our Open Textbooks campaign, we support student governments as they:
- Pass student government resolutions in support of open textbook programs;
- Raise awareness with faculty and librarians about open educational resources; and
- Meet with campus administrators to lobby for the creation of open textbook programs.
The Student Government Resource Center is a sponsor of the Open Textbook Alliance. The Open Textbook Alliance is a nationwide coalition of student government leaders who are working to bring open textbooks to college campuses.
Making Textbooks Affordable Toolkit
The Making Textbooks Affordable toolkit from the Open Textbook Alliance explains how to expand the use of open textbooks on your campus. These free, high-quality, open-source books can save students on your campus millions of dollars.