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From tackling college affordability to encouraging institutions to improve their enrollment, transfer, and financial aid policies, the Biden administration has made college access and completion a signature component of its higher education agenda. Now, new regulatory changes to how students pay for their textbooks and digital course materials will severely undermine the administration’s very same goal of improving completion and reducing disparities in college outcomes, particularly for those from historically underrepresented backgrounds.  

Traditionally, the high cost of textbooks has been a hurdle for students. Between 1977 and 2015, , the sticker price of college textbooks increased by more than three times the rate of inflation. Over the past decade, however, colleges and universities have made remarkable strides in addressing these costs by adopting a course material purchase model called inclusive access. First introduced in 2015 during the Obama Administration, this model allows colleges to ensure their students have access to required course materials — printed and virtual textbooks and access codes to online resources, for instance — on the first day of class by including the cost of course materials as part of their tuition and fees. Students who wish to search for better deals or not to buy course materials at all can “opt-out” of these programs and decline to participate and pursue another option.

But now, the Biden Administration is considering an alarming new set of  that, if enacted, will bar colleges from bundling tuition and books and require learners to “opt-in” to such programs instead. As an HBCU professor with more than 30 years of course design and teaching experience, I am deeply concerned such a change will have unintended and disastrous consequences, particularly for historically underserved students, first-generation college undergraduates, and those with the least time and fewest financial resources.

The current inclusive access model has not only gained popularity among institutions, but also demonstrated remarkable success in its positive impact on student outcomes. In less than a decade,  of American colleges and universities have adopted programs that, through deals arranged with developers of textbooks and professionally produced digital course materials, provide students with required high-quality course materials on the first day of class. 

It’s also important to note that these aren’t just your parents and grandparents' hardbound textbooks, in many cases. More and more students are now interacting with digital course materials and assignments that integrate directly with the Learning Management System (LMS) and provide real-time feedback, offer interactive and guided practice questions, facilitate formative assessment, and connect learners with multimedia content and group study tools.

U.S. Department of Education regulations require colleges to charge below market rates for these book bundles. The cost-saving is a critical feature of these programs, as  remain the top reason why students drop out of college. The opt-out provision, meanwhile, creates the necessary scale to ensure that all students have immediate access to all of the course resources they need to succeed at a price they can afford. 

Perhaps most importantly, inclusive access programs can enhance student success efforts.   that when students have the exact course materials they need in their hands when classes begin, colleges see improvements in retention rates, especially among Black and other historically underrepresented students as well as older students. The benefits of having first-day access to course materials are particularly critical for students who are financially independent, from low-income backgrounds, or experiencing other challenges that increase the risk that they may stop out.

Giving students day-one access to course materials is a critically important intervention at Norfolk State University, where I serve as a mathematics professor and the director of the  (SAIL) program. Located in the Tidewater region, Norfolk State is one of five historically black universities in Virginia where more than 90% of students receive financial aid and

In 2018,  I helped to launch an Inclusive Access program at NSU called the First Day Success (FDS) program, initially implementing it in 49 courses due to widespread student difficulties in affording course materials. The program quickly gained traction claiming over 400 sections in two years and now encompasses all courses and sections university-wide. Participants in the SAIL program at Norfolk State University paid a nominal fee of $25 per credit hour during the academic years 2022-2024 and will be paying $24.00 per credit hour beginning in Fall 2024 for their course materials. In the academic year 2022-23, the program yielded savings exceeding $2.5 million in textbook expenses for our students. These savings alleviate the financial burden on students and their families, reducing the need for out-of-pocket expenses or borrowing.

Beyond its financial benefits, SAIL has positively impacted student outcomes. Results from campus surveys indicate that an overwhelming majority of students perceived SAIL as a time and money saver. The survey also revealed that 86% of respondents felt the program better equipped them for the start of the semester, while 83% reported that it contributed to their academic success and 89% said they would recommend the program to their peers. In a relatively short span of six years, SAIL has become deeply integrated into the student experience at Norfolk State University, serving as a cornerstone of our student success initiatives.

If the intent of the proposed regulatory changes is to increase transparency around textbook costs and opt-out provisions of inclusive access or equitable access programs, policymakers should focus on standardizing these transparency practices across institutions—rather than throw out the model entirely. 

Inclusive access has provided educators with an invaluable tool for improving student persistence and success. Abandoning this model now would be a major unforced error with vast unintended consequences for students from diverse backgrounds. It would also have a significant, detrimental impact on the very same goal of improving access, affordability, and outcomes for students from underrepresented backgrounds that the Biden administration has—thus far—fought so hard to advance.