In late July, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a budget bill that included a monumental $115M allocated to create Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) degree pathways for students enrolled in California Community Colleges. This historic investment builds on the ZTC grant program from 2016 with the aim of removing cost barriers for students and accelerating their time to completion. College grantees estimate that the original $5M in state funding generated $42 million in savings across the 23 colleges that received implementation grants. This is more than an 800% return on investment.
https://www.cccoer.org/2021/08/20/great-news-from-california/
