FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — As textbook costs for college students remain high, a local university is working to make prices as affordable as possible for its students.
“Welcome to one of the biggest issues, right?” said Kristina Creager, the Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and the Student Experience at University of Purdue Fort Wayne. “Trying to make sure that we have the right materials, at the right time, at the right price.”
A U.S. Public Interest Research Group polled college students and found that 65% did not purchase a textbook for a class despite almost all of them believing it would negatively impact their grades.
“Data nationally and locally would certainly tell us that if a student doesn’t have a textbook for every course, or the required materials for courses, they’re automatically going to be at a disadvantage when they’re in those courses,” said Creager. “Clearly we need to remove as many barriers as we can.”
To help students overcome this issue, PFW offers the following suggestions:
- Rent instead of buying the books
- PFW’s campus library purchases a “great deal” of textbooks on general education courses that students can check out for free for a week or two at a time.
“If there’s something in particular that a student doesn’t want to buy a book that maybe they’re only going to use a couple of times, that’s a pretty popular option for us but again that’s not for every course,” said Creager.
- Financial aid options where textbooks are included in the cost of attendance.
“So that is something where they would be receiving aid that they can then go use that aid to buy textbooks from campus, or of course any off campus, electronic vendor as well,” said Creager.
More information can be found here.