Affordable College Textbook Act

This bill directs the Department of Education (ED) to make competitive grants to institutions of higher education (IHEs) to support pilot programs that expand the use of open textbooks in order to achieve savings for students.

It requires the full and complete digital content of the educational resources created or adopted using grant funds to be made available free of charge to the public: (1) on an easily accessible and interoperable website; and (2) in a machine readable, digital format that anyone can directly download, edit with attribution, and redistribute.

ED must give special consideration to grant applicants that demonstrate the greatest potential to:

• achieve the highest level of savings for students;
• expand the use of open textbooks at other IHEs; and
• produce open textbooks that are of the highest quality, that can be most easily utilized and adapted by faculty members, that correspond to the highest enrollment courses, and that are created or adopted in partnership with entities that will assist in their marketing and distribution.

The bill amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 to include any educational material developed to accompany a college textbook as supplemental material that is subject to college textbook information disclosure requirements.