Cause

Education

Student debt, book bans, DEI, public school funding, academic freedom.

Get updates as new targets are added.

Share Share Email

by Buckoff View campaign

Objective

Make Textbooks for College Affordable

Targets

Pearson

Pearson PLC is a British multinational education publishing and assessment services company, and one of the largest educational publishers in the world. It produces college textbooks, digital learning platforms (including Pearson+, MyLab, and Mastering), and standardized testing materials used across U.S. higher education.

Why this is a target

Pearson is one of the dominant players in the U.S. college textbook market, giving it outsized influence over the prices students pay and the formats available to them. Students and professors are the direct consumers and decision-makers, meaning organized pressure — including faculty adoption choices and student purchasing decisions — creates real leverage. Alternatives exist, including open educational resources (OER) such as OpenStax, institutional library e-reserves, and independent open-access platforms, giving students and faculty credible switching options. Because Pearson's revenue depends heavily on per-semester access-code sales and subscription renewals, even modest reductions in adoption rates translate directly into financial pressure.

Sources

Alternatives

OpenStax (Rice University nonprofit — free, peer-reviewed college textbooks) MIT OpenCourseWare (free course materials from MIT) Project Gutenberg (free public domain texts for classic literature/history courses) Chegg (textbook rentals and digital access at lower cost than new purchases) VitalSource (digital textbook rentals, often 50-80% cheaper than print) ThriftBooks / AbeBooks (used physical textbooks at steep discounts) Your campus library (free textbook lending and digital reserves) LibreTexts (nonprofit open-access textbooks across STEM and humanities) Cengage Unlimited (subscription model — access to thousands of titles for flat fee, competitor to Pearson) McGraw-Hill (traditional competitor with more flexible pricing options in some disciplines) Macmillan Learning (traditional publisher competitor with some OER partnerships) Direct author PDFs / preprints (many professors post their own materials freely) Z-Library / Internet Archive (legal digital lending of academic materials) Bookshare (free accessible textbooks for students with documented disabilities)

Do your own research. We provide sources so you can verify and decide for yourself.

Pledges you can make

I pledge to i will leave a one-star review of pearson's digital learning products on the app store easy

Negative reviews reduce app store ratings and discourage new customers from purchasing Pearson's digital products, directly impacting their ability to acquire new users.

I pledge to i will delete the pearson+ app from my device easy

Removing the app signals disengagement and, if combined with cancellation, reduces Pearson's active user metrics which matter to investors and institutional partners.

I pledge to i will cancel my pearson+ subscription medium

Pearson+ is a core direct-to-consumer revenue stream; cancellations reduce recurring subscription income and pressure Pearson to reconsider pricing and access policies.

I pledge to i will rent or borrow a used textbook instead of purchasing a new pearson textbook medium

Choosing used or rental copies cuts Pearson out of the sale entirely, directly reducing their print and digital textbook revenue which remains a major income source.

I pledge to i will switch to an open-source or free alternative for any course materials currently supplied by pearson medium

Platforms like OpenStax offer peer-reviewed, free textbooks that can replace Pearson titles; shifting to these alternatives eliminates Pearson's revenue from your enrollment entirely.

I pledge to i will request that my institution adopt non-pearson course materials for all my classes hard

Formally requesting alternative materials through your institution's academic or textbook committee creates institutional-level pressure that can eliminate Pearson contracts worth thousands of dollars per course section.