of textbooks and supplies for a college student attending a four-year college in the US is $1,077. But what if textbooks were free? What if printed course materials were made open and available online at no charge? How would that change the game? The Wikibooks project, which began in 2003, aims to create open source, CC-licensed textbooks written by volunteers. The site now contains over 38,000 pages of free textbooks, but unfortunately many of the books remain incomplete. Like Wikipedia (a more well-known project from the same foundation), entries are only completed as volunteers have time, and quality assurance is potentially spotty. Perhaps a more sustainable model is Flat World Knowledge , which offers free, CC-licensed textbooks and study materials, but charges a fee for paper copies. The Flat World Knowledge books are written by expert authors that have been vetted by the company and generally have advanced degrees, are professors, or have practical experience in their field. The books are licensed under the same permissive Creative Commons license as the OpenCourseWare materials. Flat World Knowledge books are currently in use at a number of universities, including Eastern Michigan University, the University of Rhode Island, the State University of New York system, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Sam Houston State University, and others. Conclusion The marginal cost of education is being driven toward zero due to social media and innovative approaches to online learning like OpenCourseWare, Flat World Knowledge, and the University of the People. That's because the nature