Student Organizing, Inc.

Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) are a national network of campus-based student advocacy organizations working toward affordable higher education and other public interest issues. Student PIRG’s Affordable Higher Education program seeks to expand the mainstream adoption of OER and open textbooks through grassroots, on-campus organizing and advocacy at the university, state, and federal policy level. This work helps to ensure that college educators as well as students understand the benefits of open educational materials and that educational systems are advancing policies that promote the mass adoption of those materials. (Substrategy: Sustainable Systems)

Through its Student Public Interest Research Group program, Student Organizing, Inc. leads a nationwide effort to raise awareness of the high cost of textbooks and simultaneously build demand for solutions — most importantly, open textbooks and OER. The students will focus campus action on strategies that will bring about greater market demand for institutional reforms that lead to faculty adoption of OER. This work will educate decision makers and develop new champions for OER, building faculty-student networks that will accelerate and sustain OER adoption across the country.