‘Your Wallet’: Saving money on college textbooks

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has a number of resources available for students looking for affordable textbook options.

“We know that this time of year, trying to find textbooks can be a daunting task,” Follett Regional Manager, Matthew Erskin said.

University Bookstore at UNL’s city campus offers rental books, new books, digital course materials, a price match program and a fairly new STAR initiative which stands for Successful Teaching with Affordable Resources.

“We are able to leverage and work with the publishers to provide digital course material, kind of set up for there course that is individualized and chosen by their faculty member,” Erskin said.

Erskin works with the Follett Access program. He says a vast majority of campus students utilize these resources, but its up to faculty to decide whether or not they want to participate.

“Most faculty, once they hear about one of these programs, they are pretty interested in wanting to do it because they know the books cost too much so they are happy to help out,” Academic Technology Support Specialist at UNL, Brad Severa said.

Severa has been leading the STAR program since it started in 2019. He says it’s been a real advantage towards student performance.

“There are students who won’t buy textbooks because it’s too much, and it puts them behind and that’s a disadvantage,” Severa said.

Overall, between Open Educational Resources seed grants and the Follett Unizin inclusive programs, UNL has saved an estimated $9.9 million since 2019. Also, 159,000 textbooks have been replaced with no cost or lower cost textbooks. The average saving per textbook is $62.

Severa is also reminding students of another new program called Open Nebraska. Students across all four campuses can search for classes that offer no cost, low cost and reduced cost in MyRED, when they register for classes.

Editor’s note: This report is part of a weekly series Channel 8 is airing called “Your Wallet.” We’ll be looking into any topics that deal with your money. The reports air every Monday during the Channel 8 News at 6 p.m.