
This post brought to you by Flat World Knowledge. All opinions are 100% mine.
Are you tired and fed up with increasing text-books? Are you not able to afford the text books due to their high prices? Are you not able to continue your education because of soaring prices of text books? Then you must visit Flat World Knowledge, the world’s largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. Textbooks should never become a barrier to completion of education. The below statistics will give you a better idea of present situation:
- Students spent an average $1137 in 2010 – 2011 on textbooks and supplies, according to The College Board
- According to the Department Of Education, textbooks cost almost as much as tuition and fees (72%) for 2 year community college students. This means 42% of college costs for these students go to textbooks
- Textbooks prices are rising at 4x rate of inflation (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- According to Gates Foundation study, this is having a substantive impact on students’ ability to complete coursework. 60% of students who did not graduate report that textbooks and other fees besides tuition affected them; 58% of those who did graduate cite the same (public agenda)
- Flat World is using technology to reduce cost barriers and increase access. Pairing open licensing and textbook personalization with a radical pricing model gives a formula for disrupting an $8.5bil U.S. textbook market. Books are free online, while offline books cost around $35 for print, and $25 for other formats. For the first time, students can choose the format and price point best for them.
Flat World is going beyond leveraging technology to reduce cost and using the open license to improve learning materials in 2 critical ways:
- Enabling faculty to change the textbook from a book to a platform
- Enabling the student to consume content that suits their learning style