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OER can be looked upon as a process as well as a set of products. This is because educators need to rethink the way in which they create, use and distribute learning and teaching materials. Opening up learning and teaching materials does not equate to providing a free education. Open educational resources are components of a rich educational package which includes staff expertise, institutional facilities, tuition and feedback.

As college debt skyrockets to over $35,000 per student, the state of Oregon has proposed a novel investment approach to loans: free tuition at public universities in exchange for 3 percent of earnings for the first 25 years after graduation. Just like a venture-capital portfolio that earns its profit from a few star investments, many students would end up underpaying the cost of their college, subsidized by the school's star businessmen.

The Republican governor proposed setting aside $300 million from the Tennessee Education Lottery to fund an endowment that would cover all tuition and fees to two-year institutions for all graduating high school seniors. The plan also calls for reducing Hope scholarships for incoming students at four-year universities by $1,000 for the first two years.

"The ambitious agenda set by Daniels - including a tuition freeze that broke 36 years of price increases - has captured the kind of national attention he once earned as the state's outspoken conservative governor. Daniels now enters his second year at the helm of Purdue with an expanded set of priorities but a continued commitment to cost cutting."

"In the United States-where public universities are hurting for funds, tuition and debt levels are growing, and graduation rates are stagnant-debate has focused on whether MOOCs represent a necessary innovation or the deplorable cheapening of elite university education. The question is: Could the hybrid, small-group model that's evolving abroad also provide a needed alternative for underserved American students?"

The White House has suggested that the amount of federal student aid that an institution receives should depend on how well it performs on certain key measures. I wholeheartedly agree with this in concept. The question is what those key measures should be. They should include rates of loan default, retention, and graduation. But not tuition.

"Pathway tuition, which varies by area, is set by local LDS authorities to make it an "affordable stretch," Griffith said. In Mexico, students pay $35 per credit hour, while students in Ghana pay $20. The cost can be kept so low because Pathway is a branch of online education at BYU-I, which is self-sustaining, says Griffith. It's also because buildings used for Pathway are already owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, professors are already employed by BYU-I, senior mentor couples serve unpaid and no marketing is needed thanks to word-of-mouth and ecclesiastical leader referrals. "Part of the blessing of this program is it's not about the church or BYU-Idaho making money … it's about providing an education," Griffith said."

"The House joined the Senate in approving "Tennessee Promise," the plan Haslam laid out in February to cover the full cost of two-year college for every high school graduate starting in fall 2015. The plan also calls for reducing the amount of Hope scholarships for freshmen and sophomores at state universities to $3,500, a cut of $500 a year. Juniors and seniors would receive $4,500."

"On most four-year college campuses, full-time students don't pay by the credit hour (think by channel on your cable bill). Rather they pay a flat fee for the semester (a programming package on your cable bill) and are typically allowed to take as many courses up to a certain limit."

"As a result, the tuition pricing at America's universities has evolved into something akin to a discount mattress retailer, though Graber's employer, a consultancy named Noel-Levitz, has come up with a more august name for it: "financial aid leveraging." Noel-Levitz might be the most influential force in higher education pricing that you've never heard of, empowering what's become a three-stage, market-distorting game for college administrators."

"University officials say the higher tuition rates for online courses are the result of expensive infrastructure and the costs for designing the courses, which often involve partnerships or contracts with outside online education providers.   Nassirian said the infrastructure costs make it difficult to create online classes cheaply on a small scale."

"A POLITICO investigation has found that Pearson stands to make tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and cuts in student tuition from deals arranged without competitive bids in states from Florida to Texas. The review also found Pearson's contracts set forth specific performance targets - but don't penalize the company when it fails to meet those standards. And in the higher ed realm, the contracts give Pearson extensive access to personal student data, with few constraints on how it is used."

instead of two years, it would last 10 months-long enough to make friends, participate in experiential parts of the program, and become members of the club. They would pay a fee for the immersion, but not the balance of their tuition. After that, students would graduate into the work force, but they would stay enrolled at Wharton on a subscription basis. One day, a Wharton subscriber working in investment banking might get put on a team that oversees mergers and acquisitions. Instead of aching to recall the lessons she learned back in business school (and later forgot), she takes an online "minicourse" from Wharton. "The new pattern becomes learn-certify-deploy, learn-certify-deploy," the professors write in their paper.

"The average college student working full time at minimum wage earns $15,080 annually before taxes, the report estimates. "Working might eventually cover tuition at a two-year program," said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown center and the report's lead author. "But the earnings aren't sufficient to even get close to covering a private, four-year school." "

""Students are going to be a hot commodity, a scarce resource," said Grawe. "It's going to be harder during this period for institutions to aggressively increase tuition. It may be a time period when it's a little easier on parents and students who are negotiating over the financial aid package.""

"The National University System, for example, is developing  a variety of initiatives aimed at bringing down the cost of a degree, including through FlexCourse?, a teaching and learning platform that offers faculty-supported, variably-paced online degree programs at an affordable price point of $8,500 annual tuition. The platform is initially being offered in conjunction with John F. Kennedy University, through JFKU Online --  both part of the National University System."

"Would you rather spend four years plodding toward a diploma, or networking with Wall Street CEOs and diplomats as a member at US president Donald Trump's exclusive "Winter White House" resort in Florida? For some people, the latter would be far cheaper."

"State disinvestment in public higher education compels public universities to behave like private universities by focusing on attracting paying customers," concluded Ozan Jaquette, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies college pricing, in a study of flagship state institutions he co-authored last year.

Over the next few slides we've rounded up 12 excellent free and open source applications worth investigating and experimenting with.