9 Chapter 9 – Cost Savings

During the Fall 2015 semester, 404 students enrolled in 17 course sections using OER were surveyed. With an average course textbook cost of $82,³⁴ the fall pilot discovered at least

$33,128 in savings already realized at Penn State within this small cohort. With its scale, Penn State University can realize significant cost reductions with targeted course transitions. Cost savings to students for OER adoption and common text adoptions are estimated below.

OER Cost Saving Estimates

One strong strategy for instant savings to students is to target high enrollment courses for transition to OER or affordable course content. An analysis of Fall 2016 semester textbook adoptions for the two largest enrollment courses at Penn State, ECON 102 and PSYCH 100 reveals that even very targeted OER development and adoption can yield significant savings to students.

For both courses, textbook adoptions vary greatly by instructor and section. On average, students enrolled in these courses pay $102.70 for their textbooks for each course, with prices ranging from no-fee to $288.35. A programmatic effort to create, adopt, or adapt OER for these two courses that could then be shared across the sections could eliminate the direct student cost for both courses. This would reduce the overall expenditure for Penn State students on course materials per year by over $10 million. Of course, this would require a coordinated effort and the sharing of course materials across sections, but would result in significant savings.

Common Textbook Cost Saving Estimates

A coordinated approach to traditional textbook adoptions would also result in reduced cost to students. The table below indicates the potential savings that would result from adopting the lowest cost traditional textbook in two selected multi-section courses.

The estimated savings are based on simple cost reductions per course savings at current prices for new books and do not include any discounts to the bookstore for buying in bulk that can be passed onto students.

34 National Association of College Stores, “Higher Education Retail Market Facts & Figures.” https://www.nacs.org/research/industrystatistics/higheredfactsfigures.aspx.

Transitioning only a few course sections for two courses would result in annual savings of

$49,150.80 in direct student expenditures. For the course section that already uses the lowest cost option, no savings would be realized; however, it is anticipated that these savings would scale and increase greatly with more course coordination and common textbook adoption.