System leaders hope free resources will help reduce disparities in higher education, while giving professors more power to tailor course materials.... Brian Welch, a senior at St. Cloud State University, is one of more than 85,000 students in the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities who has taken a class that relies on free materials, also called open educational resources. System leaders estimate those students have saved a combined $8.5 million over the past decade and are hopeful that the classes are starting to slowly chip away at disparities in higher education.
