On Nov. 2, 2022, the Texas A&M Student Senate passed a bill advocating for A&M to provide more free textbooks to students, especially in large introductory courses. Now, as the Texas state legislature kicks into session, the student government is taking the next step and lobbying state legislators to support Open Educational Resources, or OER. Legislative Relations Commission member Allen Zhang, one of the initial authors of the bill, said he introduced the bill because he feels textbooks are unaffordable. “As a student who has many classes that require me to purchase textbooks, some of them [over $100], I think it’s an enormous cost,” Zhang said. “I believe there are lots of free resources we could be using instead.”
