Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative promoted affordability and innovation at community colleges by supporting large scale OER adoption. From 2016-2018, 38 US community colleges across 13 states designed degree pathways using only openly licensed instructional materials.
Important Notice: Achieving the Dream Pressbooks Library Closure
Dear Users,
We regret to inform you that the Achieving the Dream Pressbooks library will be closing permanently at the end of September 2025. We sincerely appreciate the engagement and support this resource has received from our community. To ensure continued access to materials you currently use, we strongly recommend downloading copies of any texts before the closure date.
Multiple download formats are available to accommodate your needs.
Additionally, we encourage you to seek out alternative repositories of OERs such as OpenStax, Creative Commons, and more.
Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this transition, please contact us at OER@achievingthedream.org.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Achieving the Dream
OER Course Library
Each of the 38 colleges of the OER Degree Initiative created an OER degree pathway made up of 20-30 courses. In total, the initiative produced hundreds of courses. You can access many of them on the Catalog page.
Research on OER Degree Pathways
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Ascendium Education Group funded the research and evaluation of the OER Degree Initiative, which was led by our project partners SRI Education and rpk GROUP. Over the course of the initiative ATD released two interim reports and one final report. You can access all three reports here.
Conceived as an initiative in 2004 by Lumina Foundation and seven founding partner organizations, Achieving the Dream now leads the most comprehensive non-governmental reform movement for student success in higher education. Together with our Network of over 300 institutions of higher education, 75 coaches and advisors, and numerous investors and partners working throughout 45 states and the District of Columbia, ATD is helping more than 4 million community college students have a better chance of realizing greater economic opportunity and achieving their dreams.