Another huge money sink in college (and grade school), is in the cost of textbooks. I am sure that in some subjects it makes sense to replace texts every year, but in many subjects this is not necessary.  I remember as a music major being expected to buy the new edition of the music history book, when the history covered in that book hadn’t changed in many years.

There is a new movement, copied from the open-source software movement, to create open source textbooks.  A professor or a group of professors get together and write a text book, then make it available for free on the internet. Other professors are free to take the base materials and customize them to create exactly the materials that they want. Students can use digital versions for free or they can make or buy print copies for minimal costs.

The main challenge with these open courses is that they are often hard to find and even harder to evaluate.  But a recently announced project at the University of Minnesota could change that.  They have begun an Open Academics Textbook Catalog to list and evaluate the available open source textbooks.  All of the textbooks listed must be:

• Openly Licensed (e.g. Creative Commons)
• Complete (similar in scope to traditional textbooks)
• Suitable for General Use
• Available in Print

Then faculty volunteer to review textbooks in their area of expertise.  The University’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) plans to provide stipends of $500 to $1,000 to professors who review and adopt open textbooks. The CEHD is also giving iPads to all incoming freshmen so they can use the less expensive open textbook formats.