Our friends at 20 Million Minds released a compelling new infographic today summarizing the benefits of California's potential new law (needs to be signed by their governor) creating an open educational resource library of free e-textbooks. Who doesn't love a good infographic?

This September, the NY Times ran a front page article in their Sunday paper on college student loan defaults and the organizations that attempt to collect on defaulted loans. Look, if you take out a loan, my expectation is that it gets paid back. But what to do in the case of exigent circumstances? (And what exactly qualifies as exigent--that's a whole other blog post.) My focal point today--how hard is it becoming to watch students fall deeper under water?

Recently, a student blogged a very serious post about his adventures in textbook purchasing. His name is Luke Thomas and he is four classes shy of getting his undergraduate degree from the University of Maine. Luke tried to fight the textbook industry, and by some accounts, Luke won. Here is what happened.