The Efficacy of Zero-Textbook-Cost Degrees: Evidence on Learning Outcomes and Retention

The traditional college textbook model is breaking. With average students spending over $1,200 annually on materials, financial barriers are directly impacting academic success. For decades, the rising cost of commercial publishing has forced a difficult choice on undergraduates: take on additional debt, or attempt to pass rigorous courses without the required reading.[7]

In response, higher education is undergoing a quiet but massive structural shift toward Open Educational Resources (OER)—freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and digital assets. By 2026, this movement has evolved from individual faculty experimenting with free PDFs to entire institutions launching "Zero-Textbook-Cost" (ZTC) or "Z-Degree" pathways.[7]

The financial impact of these initiatives is staggering at scale. The City University of New York School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) reports that its ZTC initiative has saved students over $5 million by the spring of 2026, offering six complete degree pathways that require zero textbook purchases.[6]

State governments are aggressively backing the transition. California recently invested $115 million in one-time funding for ZTC degree grants across its community college system. Meanwhile, the Colorado Northwestern Community College is rolling out fully zero-textbook-cost Associate of Arts and Associate of Science degrees, a move expected to save individual students roughly $2,000 over a two-year program.[5][7]

But as OER adoption scales, the central question for academic departments has shifted from cost to quality. Do free materials dilute academic rigor? A comprehensive synthesis of recent empirical research provides a clear answer: learning outcomes in OER courses are consistently equivalent to, and sometimes better than, those using commercial textbooks.[3]

A major meta-analysis synthesizing findings from dozens of studies and hundreds of thousands of students demonstrated a positive overall effect on academic performance when instructors utilized openly licensed materials. The data refutes the persistent stigma that "free" equates to lower educational quality.[3]

Researchers explain this phenomenon through the "access hypothesis." In a traditional classroom, a significant subset of students simply do not purchase the commercial textbook because they cannot afford it, putting them at an immediate academic disadvantage.[4]

When a course transitions to OER, every student has day-one access to the core materials. The academic gains observed in these studies are not necessarily because the open text is inherently superior to the commercial text, but because 100 percent of the class can actually read the assigned chapters.[4]

This baseline access fundamentally alters course completion metrics. Multiple institutional studies have found that students enrolled in OER sections withdraw at significantly lower rates than their peers in traditional sections.[1]

The impact on long-term graduation rates is equally profound. A 2025 event history modeling study tracking student-level data over several years found that students who attempt no-cost or low-cost credits significantly increase their likelihood of graduation. The study noted a particularly large positive impact for older, non-traditional adult learners.[1]

Furthermore, OER serves as a powerful tool for educational equity. Research published in the International Journal of Open Educational Resources examined the interaction between course difficulty and textbook costs, finding that OER blunts the expected negative effect of difficult courses on student grades.[4]

When course materials are free, grades decline at a lower rate as course difficulty increases, providing a crucial safety net for Pell-eligible and historically marginalized students who are disproportionately affected by hidden educational costs.[4]

Faculty are increasingly recognizing these benefits. According to the 2024-25 Higher Education Educational Resources Survey by Bay View Analytics, 49 percent of faculty now report using OER materials in at least one of their courses, marking an all-time high.[2]

Despite this momentum, widespread adoption still faces institutional hurdles. One-third of faculty remain unaware of OER, and many who are aware cite the immense time required to curate, adapt, and update open materials without adequate departmental support or release time.[2]

To bridge this gap, institutions are beginning to leverage artificial intelligence to aggregate and update OER content into dynamic digital course bundles, reducing the curation burden on individual professors. As these tools mature, the zero-textbook-cost degree is poised to become the new standard for accessible, high-quality higher education.[7]