From The Ocean City Sentinel: Replacing expensive textbooks with free educational resources could reduce high college costs, but more professors and administrators need to promote the option to have an impact, according to student research published last week by the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University.
The National Center for Education Statistics estimated that college textbooks and materials for the 2021-22 academic year cost an average of $1,326 per student nationally. Over the last 50 years, prices increased at three times the rate of inflation, a research paper by Stockton senior Jessie Nash reported. Textbook costs have increased by 7 percent since 2020, outpacing increases in tuition, fees and housing, the report found.
“Textbook costs are a financial barrier to higher education that disproportionately affects minority, low-income, first-generation and food-insecure students,” said Nash, a social work major who produced her research as part of a Hughes Center internship.
Nash was awarded a Stockton University Board of Trustees Fellowship for Distinguished Students for her work on this subject in May. Nash is launching an online marketplace for used textbooks and other materials.
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