Aired; November 29th, 2023
When determining what college will cost, the first thing many students and their families look at is what the tuition price tag is for a college or university and maybe add room and board into the equation as well.
What sometimes is down on their list of expenses is the cost of textbooks and other course materials. Those costs can run into the hundreds of dollars and maybe more .
A new survey of Pennsylvania college students for Affordable Learning PA and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation finds that nearly half of students are worried about textbook costs and a third say they go without course materials because of the cost.
California-based Bay View Analytics conducted the survey. On The Spark Wednesday researcher Julia Seaman, told us,”We wanted to know how much the course materials cost. So we have some information about that and then what the impacts were, both at the small scale so that the course level, like if you can’t afford materials, does that mean you’re failing the course, getting poor grades or at the larger scale? This actually had a bigger impact on their academic choices, which very surprisingly we saw that it does really impact student choices. One of our biggest surprises for me was that the cost of course materials has impacted students choice of their minor, their major and the majority have said it’s impacted their choice of an institution that they chose to go to.”
Key findings from the Pennsylvania-focused survey include:
- Most Students Worry about Course Material Costs: Nearly half of all students surveyed expressed a “moderate” or “extreme” level of concern regarding course material costs, highlighting widespread anxiety over this issue.
- Course Material Costs Adversely Affect Student Success: The survey revealed that course material costs have a detrimental impact on students’ academic performance, leading to poor grades and forcing students to reduce the number of courses they take. Only 23% of students reported no impact on their academic career.
- Course Material Costs Affect Academic Choices: Many students indicated that decisions shaping their academic careers, such as their choice of institution, major, and minor, are influenced by material cost responsibilities and expectations.
- Students Actively Seek To Cut Costs: An overwhelming 98% of students have attempted at least one method to reduce the costs of course materials, including buying used copies, searching for a free online version of needed materials, or even going without required materials.
- Mixed Preferences for Digital and Print Materials: While 40% of students prefer print materials, 42% indicated that their preference varies depending on the course or that they have no particular preference. This demonstrates the diversity of student needs and learning styles.
Seaman added that students and their families aren’t often thinking about textbook and course material costs before taking a course, and part of the reason is it’s a challenge to pin down those costs,”Your costs aren’t part of that tuition bill that shows up, aren’t part of the enrollment information because it is highly dependent on the courses that the students take. And then also those choices are made by faculty, often semester by semester. So you don’t know ahead of time what that course may require. One thing I want to make sure is while you normally think about as a textbook, this is now actually including a lot more than just the textbook. If you’re in a science course, you could be including all the lab fees, all the art fees if you’re doing any art courses. So of course, material cost, while it does include the textbook and required textbooks, are the most common course, it is incorporating everything around that. And it’s a lot of things that you don’t really know until you’re at that course. And it may not be that expensive for one course. But remember, students are full time most of the time, and they’re taking 4 to 6 courses and each one of those may have 90 to $100 worth. Of course, material costs.”
Seaman was asked why this matters,”If it starts out with a student can’t afford a textbook, that generally means they’re also potentially choosing cost issues around housing or food or other quality of life issues as well as if they’re not having the textbook, then they’re not learning that specific course. They may not be able to pass the course. We find that 15% of students said they failed the course because of the costs, which then could potentially mean they have to retake it, change their major. So having the rolling impact to just get bigger and bigger and potentially that could mean the data for the class at the materials and freshman year. So now it takes them 5 or 6 years to graduate or they might drop out anyways because they couldn’t afford the costs.”
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