HOUSTON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 1.5 million U.S. college students are expected to save an estimated 145 million U.S. dollars in the coming academic year by using free textbooks.
According to a news release from the Rice University on Thursday, by this fall more than 11,000 faculty members at 4,200 universities or colleges will have adopted OpenStax textbooks for 8,500 courses.
OpenStax is the Rice University-based publisher of open education resource materials.
"The adoption of OpenStax nationally is taking hold and saving students and families money," said Daniel Williamson, managing director of OpenStax. "Individual faculty as well as institutions can make tremendous gains in college affordability by using OpenStax textbooks."
OpenStax projects this year's savings to be nearly double last year's impact on students' wallets.
Since 2012, OpenStax has saved nearly 3.5 million students more than 340 million dollars by offering textbooks for the most-attended college courses. The free, peer-reviewed, openly licensed books include College Physics, Biology, Concepts of Biology, University Physics, Principles of Microeconomics, Psychology, American Government and College Algebra, among others.
As a nonprofit education technology initiative that is supported by philanthropic foundations, OpenStax also provides Advanced Placement textbooks that are developed and peer-reviewed by educators along with low-cost, personalized courseware that helps students learn.
OpenStax expects to meet or beat its goal of saving U.S. college students 500 million U.S. dollars by 2020.
