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Rising costs of tuition and textbooks are not unknown to college students and there’s historically been little in terms of relief for these rising costs aside from used book sales and the (still expensive) e-book market. However, California’s 20 Million Minds foundation has been helping make the textbook costs easier to swallow for students by promoting the idea of a open source library.

The answer to cutting tuition costs may begin with the signing of State Bill 1052 and SB 1053 into state law.  The signing of SB 1052 and SB 1053 is set to create an open source library for textbooks, as well as a committee to oversee the creation of these books.

The 20 Million Minds foundation is one of many groups involved with an initiative to bring costs down by creating a new solution: a public, open-source library for open-source textbooks for core classes. Within 10 years tuition has jumped 165% at California State University (CSU), 160% at the University of California (UC) and 150% at community colleges inside the state. The statistics get even worse, though:

• Textbook costs are cited as one of the top two reasons students drop out of college.
• Textbooks can compromise 75% of total student costs at community colleges.
• New editions of textbooks are 12% more expensive than the previous edition.
• Seven out of 10 students don’t buy required textbooks due to costs.

An open-source library is probably a phrase unfamiliar to most. There are examples of some, though, but they are used for different purposes, such as the Internet Archive and Wayback Machine, which host open source movies, text documents, sound clips, and website backups from years past. In the California situation, the open-source library provides multiple perks for both the student and the university system.

First, SB 1052 is set to require development of a list of the 50 most widely taken courses between the UC, CSU, and community colleges. From here, a standardized development and review process will oversee the development of open-source material for the 50 courses. The produced material will then be under a Creative Commons attributions license and be released in multiple formats, including print and digital access. The latter including not only computer, but smartphone and tablet accessibility as well. The UC has formally endorsed these bills, but it still needs to integrate provisions of the bill for this to actually take effect.

It should be noted, though, that SB 1052 and 1053 are not the only initiatives to bring tuition costs down in California. AB 970 (which also passed) was drafted with the goal of forcing the UCs and CSU to negotiate with and justify to student bodies tuition increases 30 days in advance, as well as not enacting the fee until 90 days after it is put in place. Trustees will be required to give a reason for the fee,  the purpose of the money, how students in financial need can be helped with dealing with said fee, as well as ways to avoid the fee hike.

Creative Commons licenses will also allow faculty to create customized material from the textbooks, which would then be reviewed to see if it meets curricula standards, then approved.

This great library of textbooks does have limitations, though. It won’t cover all courses. Your physiography class? Not likely to be covered. This will simply help bring down the cost of liberal studies courses. This is nothing to sneeze at, though.  Typical college undergrad book costs in California for an academic year surpass $1,500.

The project itself will cost $10 million – half the cost being saddled by the state, the other half by foundations and the private sector. Foundations like 20 Million Minds being the latter.

20 Million Minds is but one of the groups working to get this paid for. It is the brainchild of Dr. Gary Michelson, who learned of the textbook costs from professors at Santa Ana College in California.  Having been a student himself, and seeking to create a permanent solution to the ridiculous costs, Michelson created the foundation to help get the state’s book library started.

Heading up the foundation is someone else also familiar with the costs of books. Retired Democratic senator Dean Florez is president and CEO of the foundation, with an impressive resume.  Dean originally worked in higher education policy as the Senate’s Chief consultant to the Senate Committee on University of California Admissions and staffed the California Joint Master Plan of Higher Education Review before being elected in 1998.

Florez is not only education savvy, but his work in some of the California senate’s consumer technology committee shows that Florez knows his way around technology. Not only does Florez seek to help students, but he and the team at 20 Million Minds might have the capacity to pull off this ambitious project. It won’t knock tuition costs down — but It may help students cringe a bit less when paying for their liberal studies courses.

[Image Via FutUndBeidl]

About Elaine Rita Mendus (50 Posts)

Elaine Rita Mendus is a undergraduate student working on graduating college (someday soon). Her career interests include geopolitics, the Hispanic community, and urban planning. She really wouldn't mind ending up a scriptwriter though...