Why does this issue matter?

Textbook affordability is a major concern for college students across the country. Many students experience anxiety when grappling with the issue of affording textbooks for the semester. This anxiety and stress can also affect student performance in class and their ability to complete assignments from readings. Our own student newspaper, The Gettysburgian, recently published a report on March 22, 2021 titled, “Gettysburgian Investigation Finds Discrepancies in Textbook Prices across Departments” where they discuss textbook affordability, noting that the cost of course materials can vary greatly across departments. These costs have caused barriers to student learning and impacted their mental health. 

What are some possible solutions? 

We are asking Gettysburg College and its faculty to consider implementing more cost-saving measures when it comes to class materials. These could include:

• Open Educational Resources (OER) - OER are free, openly licensed course materials such as textbooks or assignments that are comparable to costly materials that large textbook companies release annually. OER are key to solving the textbook affordability problem because they give professors the opportunity to promote equitable access to class materials. OER are already in use by some professors at Gettysburg College. While this number has been growing, the use of OER still remains partially limited across class syllabi. 
• Course Marking - Course marking would share with students information about course material costs when registering for classes in the Student Center. Some potential course markings could include marking classes as “low cost” for choosing cheaper textbook materials or providing free materials to students, or marking if a class uses OERs as their main reading material. Integrating course markings at Gettysburg would allow students to make choices in advance regarding the cost of materials.  
• Other options for reducing class material costs are library-licensed ebooks and subscriptions and other free or low cost (under $50 as per Musselman Library’s survey) materials.

From recent surveys on the Library’s social media page and data collected by staff over the past three years, we know students want the College to consider this issue important to their overall experience. We hope that this petition brings awareness to textbook affordability issues on campus and offers suggestions on how to remedy this issue. Please share this petition across campus to make education accessible to all students!