AfterDawn: Tech news

California legislator proposes a program to create free college textbooks

Written by Rich Fiscus @ 14 Dec 2011 5:15 User comments (4)

California legislator proposes a program to create free college textbooks New legislation being proposed in California could substantially change the cost of providing textbooks to college students.
The bill would mandate the creation of new textbooks to be offered for 50 different undergraduate courses. Electronic versions of the textbooks readable on computers and mobile devices would be available for no charge, with print versions costing around $20.

The textbooks would all be published under a Creative Commons license.

"There's a clarion call from students and middle class families to make higher education more accessible and affordable," said California Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg. "Open source digital textbooks can bring real relief of nearly $1,000 a year to each college student."

Dr. Larry Green, Lake Tahoe Community College professor already uses a free textbook in some of his classes. He said of his experiences with it:

Choosing to adopt the open digital textbook for my students spares them thousands of dollars in textbook expenses, and the book's academic quality is comparable, if not better, than the pricey versions offered by publishers.

Previous Next  

4 user comments

114.12.2011 05:32

Cutting the price of books by 90%-100% is a good start...but when it costs $100K to go to school for 4 years and it gets you nothing but unemployment, the system is still broken.

214.12.2011 07:07

Other states should follow their example. The cost of college textbooks is such a scam. In this day and age you can get the same information off the internet for free yet you are forced to shell out hundreds of dollars. When I was in college the college algebra book was nearly 200 bucks and so was physics. The other core courses were in the 100 dollar range. You are talking about spending this kind of money each one or two semesters for 6 or 7 classes just so the school and the professors can get kickbacks from the publishers.

314.12.2011 08:47

Quote:
Cutting the price of books by 90%-100% is a good start...but when it costs $100K to go to school for 4 years and it gets you nothing but unemployment, the system is still broken.

Bingo, I been unemployed for a while *tho I live in Canada*; and the governments turn a blind eye over hear worst than in the States. (We have the best Bank in the world right now, our economy is doing just fine... High school students are smarter than they were 5 years ago, so we don't need to improve our quality of eduction... Our solution for colleges being too expensive, allow more colleges to open up so they can be closed in the near future!)

But yea we have no issues over here.


Getting back on the topic of digital text books, I see this working until they get dinged for copyright infringement and nailed for piracy. OH WAIT, it's legal when politicians want to do it, but the average student that has been doing this for years...

414.12.2011 11:48
ps3lvanub
Inactive

When I go to uni I'm not paying for shit. Piracy over inflated textbook prices any day.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments
How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller (11 Feb 2023 1:04)
Google shut down its streaming game service Stadia late last month and this means that some people have Stadia controllers lying around that seem to be of no use. That is fortunately not the ....
2 user comments
Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account (26 Jan 2023 2:14)
Sharing a Netflix account with a person in a different location is possible and indeed very common, although the company doesn't necessarily enjoy this behavior from their customers. However, ....

News archive