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Students urge Kansas to expand Open Educational Resources as textbook costs rise
Summary
Student representatives told the Committee on Higher Education Budget that state‑funded OER materials are underused and that some professors require costly commercial, time‑limited online textbooks; students asked for mandated OER use in general‑education courses.
Student witnesses told the Committee on Higher Education Budget that Open Educational Resources (OER) funded for Kansas institutions are infrequently used and that some instructors assign costly, temporary online textbooks.
"None of the courses that I have ever taken over the past 4 years have used resources from this," Danae Estebine, student vice president at the University of Kansas, told the committee. Estebine described professors assigning commercial materials—often from a supplier she identified as McGraw Hill—that bundle readings with automatically graded online homework and require students to pay hundreds of dollars for temporary access. "I paid about $200 for access this semester, and I'll lose access to it in like May, June ish," she said.
Estebine recommended broader OER adoption, particularly for general‑education courses, saying that would lower costs and improve access. She also said some faculty assign textbooks they authored, forcing students to buy material tied to a professor's personal research rather than a general course textbook.
Why it matters: textbook and online platform costs add to overall student expenses. Committee members asked for clarification on institutional use of OER and whether more policy or incentives are needed to increase adoption. The panel did not vote on a policy change but heard the students' request to require OER in gen‑ed courses as one potential option.
