Lowering the Costs of Textbooks

After the conversion to a three-credit course model, student textbook costs are not expected to increase over the course of completing a degree because the total content for a major will remain the same – it will just be distributed differently.

Cleveland State is committed to helping students and faculty reduce the costs of textbook. Course materials, however, are decided by departments and individual faculty. For more than a year, the administration has been working with the bookstore, faculty and the library to develop textbook cost-reduction strategies that can be offered to interested faculty. The administration will continue to provide this information and will carefully monitor potential textbook issues as we implement the new curriculum to ensure students do not have to take on additional costs.

In some departments, professors already are reducing costs by moving to more affordable texts from smaller publishers and drawing more from journal articles. Other professors are reusing text books to ensure that students can sell back books when they have completed the course and future students can repurchase the same books used at a reduced price.

Some business and law programs have moved to online programs that have dramatically reduced text book costs by using completely digital course materials such as ebooks. The University will continue to work with the faculty to explore ebooks and other digital options that can reduce costs.