Education initiatives have been a strong platform for President Obama since he took office but his financial plan for community colleges recently took a nose-dive. The plan, which included $500 million for community colleges to create free online courses that colleges could customize for their students, never materialized and the money was left out of the pending student aid legislation.
In a recent story from USA Today, it seems there’s still hope for online education. According to the story, the National Repository for Online Courses (NROC) is developing its own line of online classes, thanks to a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The NROC is building a four-course developmental math sequence, which is designed to assess the abilities of students in real time, and adapt when certain skills need reinforcing. As the courses are in their final stages, one concept came to mind: the textbooks.
Are there alternative textbook options for online college course? If so, what are they, and how much will they cost?
Virtual learning systems are a wave of the future and will no doubt make education more accessible – and affordable – to more students. But with classes (even the free kind) comes textbooks and with textbooks comes costs and as any college student will tell you -there’s nothing cheap about buying textbooks.
So, with all the free courses being developed and soon to be offered, how much longer will we have to wait for free textbooks? Sources at NROC are looking into a mix of electronic materials that would replace textbooks, and thus free up costs, but the concern is over the quality of the product given the limited finances. However, that doesn’t mean textbooks can’t be purchased on the cheap.
We encourage students to start swapping their textbooks with other students, and spend less time waiting in line at the bookstore and more time in front of your computer with your latest lesson. While there are ways to make money back on the textbooks you buy, swapping your books makes life just a bit easier.
Swap.com Mobile is a free iPhone is app that lets you scan items into your HAVE and WANT lists, manage your account, see what you can get for your stuff, and participate in swaps.
College workbooks are expensive. Looking for people to swap your old used books with is a good idea. This means savings…