Overview

As higher education costs continue to skyrocket for American students and families, the price of college textbooks represents a serious part of the affordability equation. The average student will spend nearly $900 each year purchasing textbooks, nearly half of the tuition and fees of two-year public colleges and a fifth of the amount that in-state students would pay for tuition and fees at four-year public colleges this year.

The problem is made worse because textbook publishers use a variety of tactics to inflate the cost of textbooks. In addition, textbook publishers increase textbook prices faster than the rate of inflation between editions and charge American students more for the same books than students in other countries.

Now that congress has taken the first step towards making textbooks more affordable we are working with Mass Student PIRG to promote the next step, open textbooks.

Open Textbooks are high quality open-access textbooks that can be used for no cost online, and can be printed for a low cost.  Read more.