According to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, 97% of Quinnipiac students receive some form of financial aid. Eighteen percent of first-time degree-seeking undergraduates receive Pell grants, 14% receive other federal grants, and 60% take out federal student loans. Students relying on Pell grants come from lower-income families or support themselves independently, and they struggle to complete a college degree more than non-Pell-eligible students. The rate of students receiving Pell grants may also undercount students with high levels of financial need, as many eligible students do not apply for them.

Pell grants only cover a small fraction of the cost of college (tuition and indirect costs included), so students take out additional loans and work to meet their needs. Students with high levels of economic need often work more at part- and full-time jobs, have obligations to family, and face other pressures including food and housing insecurity. These features of financial insecurity amplify the challenges of completing a college degree. At Quinnipiac, students who receive Pell grants have a six-year graduation rate of 64.1%, whereas their non-Pell classmates have a 78.2% six-year graduation rate. 

Some Pell money can be allocated to textbooks and electronics purchases, but students are often expected to spend hundreds of dollars on a single textbook in each semester. For students with limited means, this can result in difficult choices and prioritization for the use of their financial aid funds. 

According to one study, more than 90% of financial aid-dependent students felt stressed about textbook costs, 82.5% did not have a textbook on day 1 due to cost, and 56.8% did not have a textbook on day one due to cost and felt it limited learning.

Compared with more affluent students, these students feel the impact of textbook costs at a meaningfully higher rate.

Students who skip buying a textbook due to cost struggle in classes, even when they think the textbook won’t be necessary for their success. That one decision can have a ripple effect: a student is set back from the beginning, and if they do eventually get the text, they have to play catch up. They are more likely to drop or fail a class, and failure or credit shortages can impact aid eligibility, setting up cycle of barriers to completion. These experiences can also influence a student’s sense of belonging, which affects retention and persistence rates.

OER can make the difference for a student making tough choices about their finances and can ultimately shape retention and persistence, especially for underserved students.

High-Impact Practices (HIPs) are teaching and learning practices that offer “significant educational benefits for students who participate in them—including and especially those from demographic groups historically underserved by higher education.” The Lumina Foundation provides additional data on the importance of HIPs for improving student success rates.

In April 2026, the American Association of Colleges and Universities announced that OER will become the twelfth official HIP, and they will release a study and data in May. [will add as soon as it’s available] 

2021

In 2021 two state grants were awarded to Quinnipiac faculty. Professor Alexander Laskin professionally reviewed OER. Professor Dave Valone completely redesigned an online asynchronous course (HS 111) using only OER.

2022

In 2022, Professors Alan Bruce and Courtney McGuinness received grants supporting the use of OER. In addition, Dr. Jill Fehleison received a grant and then presented to the AAC&U about an interdisciplinary OER project that she co-created with materials available through the Quinnipiac library.

2025

To further explore OER uses on campus, librarians, faculty, and instructional designers attended the AAC&U OER Institute. To combat the absence of state funding over the 2025-2026 academic year, this cohort applied and received permission to offer $1,000 grants to five faculty to explore the adoption of OER in a course:

• Kristen Bourgault, School of Education
• Jasvinder Dhillon, College of Arts and Sciences
• Tara Ficocelli, College of Arts and Sciences
• Yan Jin, School of Business
• Erica Mumm, School of Nursing

By replacing purchased texts with OER in just seven classes, Quinnipiac students saved $31,761 and had access to their essential course resources on day one.

Courses ranged across schools, class size, and text type, and ran in fall 2026, spring 2026, and one is set to run in summer 2026. In all, 223 students were registered across seven course sections (one faculty member was so pleased with the outcome in fall that she ran two sections with the same OER in spring).

The Quinnipiac libraries offer an extensive guide on OER, including a subject-by-subject list of resources. While it can take some time to locate the right resources, our faculty participants found that they were able to streamline, simplify, and focus their courses using OER.

If you need additional support finding the right resource for your course, book an appointment with a librarian.

If you’d like to discuss the role of OER in your learning design or as part of your teaching strategy, book an appointment with QILT.

Kristen Bourgault, Instructional Design and Technology, School of Education

For the past several years the price of my core textbook increased and I became interested in replacing it with free Open Educational Resources. I was grateful for the opportunity to focus on this work after being awarded the OER Grant, and… I was able to find rich resources to incorporate throughout my course in place of the costly textbook.

The course itself was developed 12 years ago, and while I regularly update the content, resources, activities and assessments based on changes in the field and feedback from students, this was an opportunity to engage in a true overhaul of the entire course. Through this process, I engaged in a deep review of my learning objectives and their alignment with the OER chapters I was assigning. I reworked several assignments and re-organized some of the content in a more meaningful way. 

While the textbook had offered updated editions every few years, it still felt out of date in some places, and the OER, which I pulled from a variety of places, felt much more deeply grounded in current practices in the field, with more modern examples and references to emerging technology. The writing of the OER was also far more succinct and approachable in tone for my first-semester students.

The impact of implementing OER this semester was extraordinary! The assignments my students completed each week were far more focused than previous semesters, and as a result their final presentations and papers were stronger than usual. This process of reworking my course as I integrated more up-to-date, freely accessible resources was gratifying and energizing. It helped bring new life and enthusiasm to a course I've taught 28 times! And the students were equally as energized, sharing that they felt the resources strongly supported their learning, and that they had bookmarked many of the readings to reference in the future.

Based on this experience, I hope to incorporate more OER into my courses over the next few semesters. I can pull chapters from some of the OER I've already identified during this project over the past year - but I also now have the skills to identify additional OER to further supplement the curriculum thanks to my engagement with this grant opportunity.

Yan Jin, Management, School of Business

Using OER materials for MG639: AI-Assisted Decision-Making in Supply Chain Management gave me the flexibility to build a course around a rapidly evolving topic where no single textbook currently provides sufficient coverage. While there are many excellent supply chain decision-making textbooks, few focus on how AI is changing the nature of managerial decision-making in integrated, cross-functional supply chain environments.

The OER approach allowed me to combine multiple high-quality sources that support the course’s emphasis on AI-assisted decision-making, managerial judgment, validation of AI outputs, and human oversight mechanisms.

This flexibility helped create a course that is both current and highly relevant for students preparing to work with AI-enabled supply chains.

Erica Mumm, School of Nursing

Using OER materials for Community and Public Health Nursing: Having an OER textbook evens the playing field for equity access and offers the opportunity for universal expectations in the classroom. It is clearly a cost savings for the student and a peace of mind for the faculty, knowing that all students have consistent access to the material and increases accountability to the didactic material.