May 12, 2015 09:41 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

The Virginia Community College System is moving forward with its efforts to offer textbooks and other resources at little to no cost, school officials announced Monday.

The system received a $200,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to fund a pilot program at 15 of Virginia's Community Colleges, Inside Higher Ed reported. The grant-funded pilot program is based in part on Tidewater Community College's successful all-Open Educational Resources initiative, or "Z-Degree" program.

"We are proud to support Virginia's Community Colleges in this effort to make education more accessible by providing students with the course materials they need, when they need them, using open educational resources," said Hewlett Foundation Program Officer TJ Bliss. "This project will not only make education more affordable to students of Virginia's Community Colleges, it will also increase their faculty's freedom and flexibility to open up the classroom with a wide range of adaptable course materials."

The initiative, which offers textbook-free credentials to students enrolled in designated programs, is expected to save some 50,000 students more than $5million in its first year.

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