Grossmont College Partners with OpenStax to Promote Free Textbooks
The high cost of traditional textbooks—an average of somewhere between $600 and $1,400 per student each year, according to studies by NACS and the College Board—not only impacts students’ ability to attend college but also their ability to continue and complete coursework. Open educational resources, including the free, peer-reviewed textbooks offered by OpenStax, eliminate cost barriers for students and allow unrestricted, immediate access to learning materials, increasing the likelihood for students to complete their courses successfully.
Textbooks in the digital world
For decades, textbooks were seen as the foundation for instruction in American schools. These discipline-specific tomes were a fundamental part of the educational infrastructure, assigned to students for each subject and carried in heavy backpacks every day – from home to school and back again.
The experience of students is much different today.
As a scholar of learning technologies and a director for outreach and engagement at Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology, we’ve seen how technological advances and an increase in digital curriculum materials have hastened the move away from textbooks.
Does all of this technology spell the end of traditional textbooks? And if so, is that actually a good thing for students and teachers?
How To Slash Back To School Costs
Are your kids headed back to school — or are you going back to college or grad school? Get ready to spend big bucks. Back-to-school spending for college is expected to reach $54.1 billion in 2017, with costs for kids in elementary through high school reaching $29.5 billion, per the National Retail Federation’s latest survey. Those figures are up significantly from 2016, when expected spending was $48.5 billion and $27.3 billion, respectively.
For individual families, average spending for college students is estimated at nearly $1,000, while parents of kids in elementary through high school will spend about $690 on average this year.
Electronics and clothing are two of the biggest expenses for anyone going back to school. College students also expect to spend a lot on dorm supplies and food, while parents of younger kids will be putting more cash toward school supplies and shoes than they did in 2016.
The good news is there are deals to be had if you know where to look and are smart about your shopping — so you don’t have to blow your budget if you’d rather be a more frugal shopper. Just follow these seven secrets to saving money and you’ll be left with extra cash in your pocket to go towards tuition or other money goals.
Buy Cheap Used College Textbooks 