It now costs more to attend a public California college than Harvard University, and California campus officials are pushing for a centralized online learning repository and lawmakers are proposing a free open source textbook library that could all but eliminate students’ textbook costs, while state budget cuts threaten to make higher education even more expensive in 2013.
The open-source library – an idea that has long been pushed in educational technology circles – has become a serious public policy proposal just months after state schools raised tuition and fees as California faces steep budget shortfalls.
California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat, introduced a bill last month that would fund a comprehensive online library for the state’s 50 most popular public college courses. Students could access the books in the repository free of charge, or print a paper version for about $20.…Read More