Since Spring 2018 through Spring 2025, approximately 111,457 student enrollments in ZTC classes. Estimated cumulative student out-of-pocket savings is $14,613,000. In Spring 2025, 437 ZTC & 111 LTC class sections were offered by 156 ZTC & 55 LTC unique faculty.

Zero Textbook Cost

Overview

Skyline College recognizes the continued high cost of textbooks as a barrier that impacts student success. Inability to afford textbooks and course materials is an equity issue and it can be addressed through Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) & Open Educational Resources (OER) adoption. The primary goal of Skyline College Textbook Affordability Solutions is to reduce educational costs for students by providing free or low-cost learning materials that are available from day-one of their class and customizable to fit their learning needs.

What is ZTC?

ztc logo

S.B. 1359 states Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) course materials “may include open educational resources, institutionally licensed campus library materials that all students enrolled in the course have access to use, and other properly licensed and adopted materials.”

Zero textbook cost (ZTC) also means that students do not incur any costs for purchasing course materials. Zero-cost to the students does not guarantee zero-cost to the institution, i.e. subscription databases, library equipment loans. To create a ZTC course, instructors might use Open Educational Resources (OER); Open Access, Creative Commons, and public domain materials, along with teacher-created materials and electronic resources owned or licensed by the Skyline College Library.

ZTC materials include:

ztc wheel

What is OER?

oer logo Open Educational Resources (OER) are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. (Hewlett)

OER Materials may include:

Textbooks
Course readings, articles, and journals
Course packs
Quizzes
Streaming videos
Virtually any other material used for educational purposes

Why use Open Educational Resources? OER are free, ready-to-use content for your classes. Creators and users are free to retain rights, reuse content, remix content, revise content, or redistribute content.

For more information on ZTC and OER resources, please visit our For Faculty page or For Students page!

ZTC at Skyline

Zero Textbook Cost materials (ZTC) and Open Educational Resources (OER) are changing the way instructors teach and students learn. ZTC and OER classes provide ALL enrolled students with simultaneous and immediate use of digital textbooks and course materials! They are available online - anywhere, anytime. ZTC & OER materials remain available to students long after the end of the semester. ZTC materials are available to students at no cost!

Student Voice - Student Open Education Week 2023 Survey Summary

We asked Skyline College students what they thought about textbook costs. Here is what they had to say: Because of high course material costs...

56% use ZTC indicators to search for no-cost and low-cost courses
42% purchase course materials elsewhere (not from the Bookstore)
30% take fewer classes
30% don't purchase course material
15% drop a course because they cannot afford course materials

Unless otherwise noted, content on Skyline College ZTC pages is by the Skyline ZTC Team and licensed CC BY 4.0. ZTC Wheel by Ame Maloney for Skyline ZTC is licensed CC BY.