Monday, September 15, 2008

Professor publishes free online books to help students

I've always admired reformers, and R. Preston McAfee is trying to change the cost of a college education, at least at the textbook level.

For those of us braved it through college, we'll never forget the final tab for those textbooks. By the time you added up your core curriculum,elective and major books, the final total could reach wel into the $500-600 range. McAfee,an economics professor a Cal-Tech, is taking a new approach to publishing his textbooks. Citing severe overpricing by publishers, he decided to publish his intro to economics book online, with free access.(The books is still available in hard copy,starting at $19.95 per copy.)In the Sept. 15 New York Times article, he said

This market is not working very well - except for the shareholders in the textbook publishers, he said. We have lots of knowledge, but we are not getting it out.

In the L.A. Times, he said

I was disappointed in the uptake," McAfee said recently at an outdoor campus cafe. "But I couldn't continue assigning idiotic books that are starting to break $200....I'm a right-wing economist, so they can't call me a communist.Publishers have broken an implicit contract with academics, in which we gave our time and they weren't too greedy

  McAfee's online textbook is being used at Harvard, Claremont-McKenna and  a few other colleges. His approach, while noble, is unlikely to be followed by many more professors. According to the same article, he turned down approximately $100,000 to turn the rights over to a commercial publisher. In a perfect world, his model would be followed,  but most universities are embedded into the publishing contracts, it's unlikely that we'll see a drastic overhaul anytime soon.

As prices skyrocket from the gas pump to the grocery store, many families are looking to save anyway they can, and this is one way for students to save some extra cash for those college "neccesities" .

The funny thing is, McAfee's generous act created more positive press for him than any of his typical publications would have ever generated. He effectively created his own mini-economic model that thousands of professors will evaluate and discuss with their co-workers and students.

By Matt O'Hern at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

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