Walking down an aisle at the College of DuPage Bookstore, stacks of textbooks line the shelves. Students can purchase "The Art of Public Speaking" for $230 or used for $180, or an early childhood experiences textbook for $235. The average college student spends over $1,000 a year on textbooks and course materials.
Those prices can force students to make tough decisions. In a 2023 survey of Illinois college students, 69% of respondents said textbook costs caused them not to buy required materials and just try to get through the class without them. Some had to take fewer classes to blunt the cost or not enroll in courses with high costs at all -- even if they may need them to graduate.
With that in mind, College of DuPage has been trying to reduce textbook costs by investing in Open Educational Resources or OER projects.
College of DuPage librarian Lauren Kosrow says OER is where textbooks or learning materials are published for free for educators to use, but that’s not all.
“They," she said, "expressly give other faculty permission to adapt and change those materials for their classroom."
The college has offered grants to support faculty not just seeking out OER materials but also looking to create their own. So far, over 100 faculty have worked on open education projects.
“This is the first video for Section 3.2, simple interest," says COD math professor Jackie Kraus, narrating video guided notes for her General Education Mathematics course. "In this video, we will solve problems involving simple interest and solve simple interest formulas for present value, rate and time."
Kraus and three other COD math faculty — Erica Hotsinpiller, Rita Patel, and Christy Peterson — just spent over two years on their OER project. They created a brand-new textbook for that class, along with guided notes.
Hotsinpiller says they also developed an interactive online homework system and learned a coding language in order to build it. This past fall, the entire math department started using their materials.
“I think our primary concern," said Hotsinpiller, "was cost effectiveness for the student and also providing materials that gave the sort of level of rigor that we wanted for this class."
Last fall, Kosrow says, COD also launched a Zero Textbook Cost tool for students.
“When students are searching for course sections that they might want to register for the semester," she said, "they can actually search or filter by which courses are being taught with zero textbook costs."
Kosrow says COD's open education investments have saved students over $7 million over the past five years. She says their next goal is to offer an Associate of Arts degree path with zero textbook costs.
Waubonsee Community College has expanded OER as well. In fall 2024, 77 of their course sections used open resources, the most they’ve ever offered. Waubonsee professor Aaron Lawler says they've saved students over $1 million since 2022.
Last year, Kishwaukee College eliminated all added fees. This summer, Kishwaukee President Laurie Borowicz says they’re setting their sights on textbook fees.
“What that plan is," said Borowicz, "is that we are going to increase tuition by $8 per credit hour for our students, and all their textbooks will be included."
She says the biggest reason to do this is to bring down costs for students, obviously, but the other big reason is cost transparency. Borowicz says it’s more difficult for students to budget for their education when they don’t know exactly how many fees will be tacked on or books will be required. The web of fees was getting difficult even for her to figure out.
“If the president is confused, if I'm struggling," she said, "how can our students not be struggling? And parents!”
The math faculty at College of DuPage say projects like theirs aren’t just good for cost-cutting. It’s not just that all students, regardless of income, have access to a textbook on day one of class — it’s that it's a textbook more specifically tailored to them.
The faculty say their open education project made them more effective teachers. They wrote every page and thought out every definition, so they can teach it with much more confidence than any book off the shelf.
Because if there’s one thing students hate more than an expensive textbook, it’s an expensive textbook the teachers don’t even use.
