Grant Funding Awarded to Assist Lowering the Student Debt Load

KENNESAW, Ga. (Aug 31, 2015) — In order to provide affordable learning opportunities for students, the University System of Georgia set up an Affordable Learning Georgia office. One of the efforts of this office involves developing open educational resources (OERS) to be used in classes to provide no or low cost course materials to students and to reduce the student debt load.

The OERS function in lieu of textbooks. Websites, online textbooks, and resource collections are just a sampling of the materials that will be created the faculty members, who were awarded the grants. These educational resources promote student retention, completion, success, and satisfaction as well as student learning.

Seneca Vaught, Griselda Thomas and Nikki Hill won a $10,800 grant for African and African Diaspora Studies course 1102. With the educational materials being developed, $21,600 is expected to be removed from the student debt load per year.

Ginny Zhan, May Gao, and Yumin Ao won a grant for $16,450 to develop educational resources for Asian Studies course 1102. Students choosing to enroll in this course will benefit by a debt load reduction of $112,492.80 per year.

Daniel Farr and Tiffani Reardon were awarded a grant for $10,800 to create educational materials for two sections of Sociology 1101. The expected reduction of the student debt load is $13,963.80 per year.

Tamara Powell, Jonathan Arnett, Monique Logan, Cassandra Race, and Tiffani Reardon were awarded a grant for $30,000 to develop materials for Technical Writing 2010 and 3140. The yearly student debt load reduction is $55,611.55.

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences has been the most successful in garnering grants to benefit student learning and faculty development.