President Choi to announce new initiative on affordable higher education

UM System President Mun Choi is expected to announce a new initiative Wednesday aimed at lowering the cost of higher education.

The initiative will “reduce the cost of attendance and enhance learning for students,” according to a UM System release. Representatives from student government, faculty and bookstore personnel will also be present. The announcement will be held at 1 p.m. in The Mizzou Store.

At his last president’s report in Rolla, Choi spoke about the use of free, open-source textbooks as a way to cut cost.

“If we can have courses like calculus, U.S. history, psychology that is available using open source textbooks throughout the entire university system as well as to enrollment students, imagine the cost savings,” he said in April.

Open educational resources are published with open access copyrights, and therefore, are available to students for free.

The University of Connecticut adopted an open educational resource policy while Choi served as provost there. Financial initiatives were given to faculty who adopted the policy.

OpenStax is one of the most well-known open educational resource programs. The nonprofit, which was initially funded in part by Bill and Melinda Gates, is based at Rice University and is also the program used at UConn.

ABC 17 News will live stream President Choi’s announcement and will have a full report Wednesday at 6 p.m.