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When I first thought about attending UC Santa Cruz, I remember hearing about the high tuition costs. I figured, for the long-term benefits, I would be willing to handle those debts. I’d consider extra summer classes and graduate in three years. Little did I know that every class I signed up for had $150 paywalls, some requirement for physical books and even autobilled costs to my student account that forced me to pay.
In a single quarter, I’ve had to pay over $200, and I’m on the more fortunate end. I recently learned that textbook prices have increased at three times the rate of inflation; that’s a 1041% cost increase since 1977. Additionally, according to U.S. Public Interest Research Group, two out of every 25 students fail a class because they couldn’t afford their textbooks.
This is completely unreasonable. We are paying tuition for college, for housing, for meal plans, for each credit that we take, and yet what holds us back is not our ability to work hard, but the cost of textbooks. Open education resources are a great alternative that are just as high quality, and we need to support more school systems in utilizing open education resources in their curriculums.
Angelina Cheng
UCSC student