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The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

Passed Senate bills could mean free books

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The price of Amazon’s most basic Kindle recently dropped to $69, which could make obtaining e-books easier for students. Photo by Kate Paloy | [email protected]

With textbook costs towering disproportionately over income and inflation rates, many students wonder how much longer their educational goals will be fiscally attainable.

Recent developments in Congress will make life significantly easier—and less expensive—for students. On Aug. 28, the California Senate voted on a pair of bills that will greatly impact UC, CSU, and community college students. Senate bills 1052 and 1053 have unanimously passed allowing for the creation of a digital open source library for students in California.

Though this will help a lot of students, especially those who receive financial aid, the costs of e-readers could be a concern for some. Despite these concerns, the price of Amazon’s most basic Kindle recently dropped to $69, which could make obtaining e-books easier for students.

Several schools across the nation are requiring their students to obtain tablet computers for their supplies and coursework.

“Reducing educational costs to students is imperative,” said Rhonda Rios-Kravitz, dean of the learning resources division.

Rios-Kravitz is currently working on a pilot program to see how students respond to e-readers. In this course, half of the class uses a paper book and the other half uses electronically-based materials in order to see the variances that the medium has in the learning process.

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“I give back all the profits from the store,” said Randy Clem, director of the College Store. “It all goes back to the campus and eventually that will be eliminated.”

“So it is a lot of money that the campuses will not be getting back,” said Clem. “Bookstores are looking at new ways of presenting things, getting more involved with other areas like supplies and clothing, but books are 85 percent of the revenue coming in, so it will affect us quite a bit.”

According to the Illinois Government News Network and the Twenty Million Minds Foundation, the cost of textbooks has increased 186 percent between 1986 and 2004; this is double the rate of inflation. When textbooks make up 75 percent of students’ educational costs, it is clear that something must be done to combat this grotesque extortion of student funding.

“I think that this would help a lot of students,” said Carl Banks, a first year business student at City College. “Most people don’t keep their books anyway, so if they can get their books cheaper and not have to worry about returning them or anything like that, then I think that would be great.”

Progress in the development of the digital open source library should be interesting to observe. If this bill is signed into effect by Governor Jerry Brown, there will be colossal changes in the cost of California education.

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