COMMENTARY: Affordable college 'open textbooks' for all - The Monitor: Columnists

"With the rising cost of college tuition across our country, many college students and those planning to attend college are looking for ways to minimize higher education expenses. It is a serious matter when American students cannot afford to enroll in college and pursue necessary degrees due to a lack of funds. For many years, I have worked with many colleagues in Congress on legislation that would help make higher education more affordable and accessible. In March 2010, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act was signed into law. This historic bill included the largest investment in higher education since the 1944 passage of the GI Bill. The 2010 bill invested $36 billion into the Pell Grant program during 10 years and increased the maximum annual award per student to $5,550. It is worth noting that the number of Pell Grant recipients increased from 6.2 million in 2008 to more than 9 million just three years later, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The legislation eliminated subsidies to banks in the federal student loan programs and instead originated all federal student loans directly through the government, thus making college loans more affordable. This law made significant and positive changes to the way students and families borrow money for college loans. It significantly increased the ability for low-income and middle-class students to borrow more affordably and apply for larger Pell Grants. It strengthened our community colleges and institutions that serve minorities and Hispanics. There are, however, other expense barriers for college students. The cost of supplies and textbooks is at an all-time high. During the past decade, the cost of new textbooks has increased by 82 percent — that is three times faster than the rate of inflation. It is for this reason that last week I introduced House Resolution 3538, the Affordable College Textbook Act. This legislation would create a competitive grant program for institutions of higher education to create and expand the use of textbooks that can be made available online and licensed under terms that grant the public the right to freely access, customize and distribute the material, also known as “open textbooks.” Open textbooks are educational resources that are made available free of charge to the public. This allows professors, students, researchers and others to freely access these materials as a classroom supplement or alternative to traditional textbooks. In my subcommittee on higher education and workforce training, we had a recent hearing on this issue. We heard from a nonprofit textbook publisher, OpenStax College, which is based at Rice University, that informed us that the University of Texas-Pan American has adopted a free book for UTPA physics students that is offered through Rice University’s OpenStax College. This translates to UTPA students saving money. Textbook costs are one of the most overlooked college expenses, but it can be substantial and a huge barrier that prevents many from attaining a college education ..."