Federal push to replace $1,290 textbooks with free open-source alternatives
H.R. 1886 — Affordable College Textbook Act · Filed by Joe Neguse (D-CO) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 5, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a federal grant program to help colleges adopt and create open-source textbooks—free educational materials that students can access without paying publishers. It also requires colleges to disclose textbook prices and whether materials are open-source on course schedules, and mandates that publishers reveal how they collect student data from digital textbooks. The goal is to reduce the $1,290 average annual textbook cost students face by expanding free alternatives.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a federal grant program to expand free textbooks and mandate price/data-use disclosure. It directly addresses a documented student financial burden ($1,290/year) through market substitution (open-source alternatives) rather than price controls, and strengthens information access for consumers.
What the text implies
- Textbook publishers (Pearson, Cengage, McGraw-Hill) face potential revenue erosion if open-source adoption accelerates; the bill's success depends on faculty willingness to switch, which is not guaranteed despite federal incentives.
- The data-transparency requirement (Section 4) may expose publisher data-collection practices to public scrutiny, potentially triggering student privacy concerns or regulatory follow-up if abusive terms are revealed.
- Federal grant funding is discretionary ('such sums as necessary') with no mandatory appropriation; actual program scale depends on Congressional budget decisions, limiting predictability of impact.
- The 'sense of Congress' language on academic freedom (Section 5) is non-binding and may signal tension between federal incentives to adopt open textbooks and faculty autonomy—colleges cannot mandate adoption without risking legal/governance pushback.
- Colleges must assist campus bookstores in sourcing lower-cost alternatives, potentially disrupting traditional textbook retail margins and forcing bookstores to compete on service rather than exclusive supplier relationships.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Students directly benefit from lower textbook costs through expanded access to free open-source materials and better price transparency. Colleges and faculty gain federal support to transition away from expensive proprietary textbooks. The bill imposes no new costs on students and creates accountability mechanisms (price disclosure, data-use transparency) that strengthen consumer protection.
Who stands to gain
- Students (direct cost savings through free/low-cost open textbooks)
- Colleges and universities (federal grants to offset transition costs)
- Open educational resource platforms and repositories (increased demand for hosting/curation services
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Education, Institutions of higher education, College Board, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Student PIRGs, Pearson, Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Campus bookstores, Higher Education Act of 1965, Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 508)
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 3 Democrats.
- Mar 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 5, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $10,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 9 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Joe Neguse, the sponsor, reported $1,076,229 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Association of College Stores — $10,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (15,230 characters) on Aug 18, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal push to replace $1,290 textbooks with free open-source alternatives” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1886 Report an error
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