Ailts: Open textbooks and the future of higher education | The Minnesota Daily

Amyluv's bookmarks 2017-10-17

Summary:

"Ailts: Open textbooks and the future of higher education After years of the Affordable Textbook Act being reintroduced in Congress, we should pay attention this time around. By ELLEN AILTS

Last month, Senator Al Franken reintroduced the Affordable Textbook Act in Congress – this is a bill Franken has been trying to push for the past few years, but has yet to make real headway. This bill needs to be taken seriously by Congress. 

Textbooks are a fast-rising expense for college students and an increasingly important issue. College students in Minnesota spend around $1,300 on textbooks, and between 2002 and 2013, the price of college textbooks has soared 82 percent (almost three times the rate of inflation). According to research by the advocacy group U.S. PIRG, 65 percent of students have decided to not purchase a textbook because it was too expensive, and as a result were seriously concerned about their grade. Additionally, half of students surveyed said they choose what classes, or how many classes, to take based upon the cost of the textbook and 82 percent felt they would perform better in a class if the textbook was made available online, with a hard copy being optional. It’s clear the lack of accessible textbooks is seriously limiting and harming the academic potential of students — with the near-monopoly that publishers have over both print and textbook formats, these prices are unlikely to decrease. "

Link:

http://www.mndaily.com/article/2017/10/o-ailts-open-textbooks-and-the-future-of-higher-education

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » Amyluv's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.textbooks oa.hei oa.oer oa.legislation oa.books

Date tagged:

10/17/2017, 17:45

Date published:

10/17/2017, 13:45