If you are anything like me, you get VERY frustrated on behalf of your students with the cost of textbooks and other materials. A lot of institutions of higher education around the country - especially public institutions, which are heavily supported by taxpayer dollars - are adopting low-cost initiatives. In 2011, Washington launched its Open Course Library project, aiming to keep the cost of course materials to the student to $30 or less. The Washington state legislature funded the project, knowing that in the long term the taxpayers would be saving money. Along with many other institutions, the Maricopa Community Colleges has launched its own low-cost initiative, Maricopa Millions, where a "low-cost" course is defined as one which will cost the student $40 or less in total for course materials.
All a student needs to do is conduct a specialized search in Find a Class under "Misc. Search Options" - as you can see from my CGCC Spring 2016 search results, the college is offering 55 sections (a total of 19 different classes) of low-cost courses:
THERE ARE TWO BIG WAYS IN WHICH YOU CAN HELP STUDENTS:
Gather existing Open resources that have been shared by others and would be appropriate for learning in your courses, and start using them! The list of resources below may help you get started:
Creating materials isn't as difficult as you may think - there are so many easy-to-use web tools and mobile apps out there to help you create images, videos, slideshows, infographics, electronic posters, ebooks, etc., that pretty much anyone can create great content!