The Evidence on Open Educational Resources: How Free Textbooks Impact College Grades and Completion

For college administrators and students looking to improve academic outcomes, the data is now definitive: replacing expensive commercial textbooks with Open Educational Resources (OER) does more than save money. It actively raises course grades and keeps vulnerable students enrolled. The long-held assumption that free, openly licensed materials might be academically inferior to $200 publisher bundles has been thoroughly dismantled by large-scale institutional research.[2][3]

The empirical consensus reveals that OER is a structural intervention. By eliminating the financial barrier that forces many students to delay or skip purchasing required reading, open materials ensure "day-one access." This immediate availability translates directly into measurable academic gains, transforming a budget-friendly alternative into a core student success strategy.[4]

The most comprehensive synthesis of this data was published in 2024 in the International Journal of Educational Research. Researchers analyzed 26 distinct studies to measure the direct impact of OER on student achievement. The meta-analysis revealed that students in OER-supported courses experienced higher completion rates—specifically, a greater likelihood of earning at least a C or D—compared to their peers using traditional textbooks.[3]

Furthermore, the 2024 analysis found that OER courses were associated with higher overall course grades. When materials are free and digitally available immediately, students do not fall behind during the crucial first weeks of a semester while waiting for financial aid to clear or searching for cheaper used copies. The friction of access is entirely removed.[3]

This access hypothesis was rigorously tested in a landmark 2018 study published in the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Researchers tracked 21,822 students at the University of Georgia to measure how course-level OER adoption impacted various success metrics. The results were striking: OER adoption led to a notable increase in A and A- grades, alongside a significant decrease in DFW rates (students who earn a D, F, or Withdraw from the course).[4]

Crucially, the 2018 study highlighted that the academic benefits of OER are profoundly progressive. While all students saw a 2.68% average drop in DFW rates, the gains were substantially larger for Pell Grant recipients, part-time students, and populations historically underserved by higher education. For Pell-eligible students, the shift to OER resulted in a 5.49% increase in A grades, effectively narrowing the attainment gap between low-income students and their wealthier peers.[4]

The sheer scale of these outcomes recently prompted a major structural recognition. In June 2026, the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) officially designated OER as a "High-Impact Practice" (HIP). This places open resources alongside established, resource-intensive interventions like undergraduate research, first-year seminars, and study abroad programs.[2]

The AAC&U's 2026 report, which drew on nearly 700,000 student records across 15 institutions, confirmed that across every institution type—from community colleges to doctoral universities—the share of students earning A's rose after instructors adopted OER. At community colleges, students who took multiple OER courses and needed more than four years to graduate finished roughly a year sooner than those who took none.[2]

Beyond the raw metrics of grades and retention, OER offers a pedagogical advantage that commercial textbooks structurally cannot: adaptability. Because open materials are licensed to allow remixing and revising, faculty are not locked into a static, nationally standardized curriculum. They can alter the text on the fly to reflect emerging trends, local contexts, or specific student needs.[1]

This adaptability is driving a new wave of equity-focused curriculum design. In Massachusetts, a consortium of colleges backed by a federal grant launched the "Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens" project. As reported by EdSurge, the initiative moves beyond mere affordability, empowering faculty to deliberately construct OER that are culturally relevant to their specific student demographics.[1]

Commercial textbooks are typically produced for massive markets in states like Texas or Florida, meaning their cultural references and examples reflect those origins. By contrast, the Massachusetts initiative encourages professors to pull local context into their textbooks and include non-white narratives, creating materials that resonate directly with the students in the room.[1]

When students see themselves reflected in the course materials, engagement rises. Faculty participating in these equity-focused OER projects report that the ability to identify gaps in commercial texts and immediately patch them with localized, culturally responsive content transforms the classroom dynamic. It shifts the textbook from a static authority to a living, collaborative document.[1]

The evidence pack surrounding OER does contain transparent limitations. While the aggregate data points to improved grades, several individual studies within the meta-analyses report "no significant difference" in learning outcomes. This suggests that OER itself is not inherently superior in its content; rather, its primary power lies in removing the friction of cost. When a commercial textbook is provided for free, it likely performs just as well as an OER text.[3][4]

Furthermore, the AAC&U report explicitly notes that OER delivers its strongest results when its implementation is well supported by the institution. Transitioning a course from a traditional publisher bundle—which often includes pre-built quizzes, slide decks, and automated grading—to an OER framework requires significant faculty time and instructional design support.[2]

Instructors who lack access to professional development, funding, or time for course redesign report a much weaker experience with OER. The burden of curating, editing, and maintaining open materials can be substantial, leading to burnout if institutions treat OER merely as a cost-cutting measure rather than a strategic investment in teaching infrastructure.[5]

Despite these hurdles, the trajectory of the evidence is clear. Open Educational Resources have evolved from a niche affordability initiative into a validated driver of academic equity. By ensuring that every student has access to the materials they need from the moment a course begins, higher education institutions are finding a scalable, proven method to boost completion rates and level the academic playing field.[5]