High college costs will keep as many as 2.4 million low and moderate-income college-qualified high school graduates from attending college during this decade. For those who do attend college, financial stresses are the main reason that 46 percent of students do not graduate with any credential within six years. College textbook and course material expenses are a significant part of college costs. The College Board estimates that the average student paid $1,200 on books and course materials during the 2012-13 academic year. These high costs put student success at risk.

Dr. David Ernst will describe efforts in the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development to improve college access, affordability, and success by reducing the impact of textbook and course material costs for students. Dr. Ernst spent the last two years identifying barriers to the adoption of open textbooks and finding ways to help institutions and faculty overcome those barriers. He created the Open Academics textbook catalog (http://open.umn.edu) in April, 2012, as a single source for faculty to find open textbooks. The catalog has had over 70,000 visits from instructors in 173 countries. Dr. Ernst will also describe the Digital Course Pack project, which leveraged digital content already-licensed by the Libraries to create digital course packs that were free or reduced cost for students. Lastly, Dr. Ernst will explain how all schools can reduce textbook and course materials costs by leveraging the same tools successfully used by the University of Minnesota. A live web stream of the presentation on can be found at the following URL: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/pvhfc