The Economics of Free Education
Right now, American Yawp MS is a passion project created and maintained by a history educator in their spare time. No grants, no corporate sponsors, no advertising. Just someone who believes that high-quality history education should be free for everyone.
That means the project runs on donated time and energy.
Traditional textbooks can cost schools $50–$150 per student. For a class of 30 students, that's $1,500–$4,500. Many schools—especially in underfunded districts—simply can't afford it. Students share outdated books, or go without books entirely.
American Yawp MS costs $0. Forever. For everyone.
That's not just about saving money. It's about equity. A student in a wealthy suburb and a student in a struggling rural district deserve access to the same high-quality materials. Open-source education makes that possible.
American Yawp MS is licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. That means no one can ever lock this material behind a paywall. Even if the project were to receive funding in the future, the textbook itself must remain free and open. That's not a promise—it's a legal requirement built into the license.
As the project grows, there may be opportunities for sustainable funding that preserve the free, open-source model. Possibilities include:
But here's the commitment: the core textbook will always be free. No ads. No paywalls. No "freemium" model where the good stuff costs money. The entire textbook, in digital form, will remain freely accessible under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
The best way to support American Yawp MS right now is to:
If funding opportunities emerge in the future, we'll update this page. For now, the project runs on the belief that education is a public good—and that the best way to create something worth using is to build it in the open, with the people who will actually use it.