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Low-Cost Textbook Initiative

UniversityPig

Introducing... Awesome!
The name of our Low-Cost Textbook Initiative piggy...
because that's what saving money is: AWESOME!


We guarantee that the total cost of textbooks in your low-cost textbook course will be under $25! Identify our low-cost courses by searching the SCHEDULE OF CLASSES. They can be identified by the blue pig icon such as the one in the example below.

LCI PIG

Talk to your advisor when registration opens and ask about these courses. Any questions can be email to LCTI@tamuc.edu.

GOAL

The goal of this initiative is to seek out and bring to students the best, most engaging, highly appropriate sources for learning available costing no more than $25.00 per course for the textbooks and/or course materials.

RATIONALE

The rationale lies in the rising costs of textbooks. In January 2013, Huffington Post reported that textbook prices rose by 812% in the past thirty years, a rate of increase higher than escalating tuition costs and national inflation. In its survey of students in 33 states, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) found that students spent an average of $1,200 per year on textbooks and course supplies.

  1. Our own university fact-book states that our students spend an average of $1,400 per year on textbooks. Recently, state legislators have been emphasizing the affordability of higher education. Consequently, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), with its focus on access, affordability, quality, success and cost efficiency, has begun tasking the state’s public education institutions generally with managing education costs.
  2. “Report: High Textbook Prices Have College Students Struggling,” US News & World Report, 28 January 2014. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/28/report-high-textbook-prices-have-college-students-struggling 
  3. “State of Higher Education in Texas,” Commissioner Raymond A. Paredes’s presentation at the Texas Higher Education Leadership Conference, 21 November 2014.