Last updated on January 28, 2018
By Anthony Davidson
Volunteer State Community College has introduced a new system outline for students who are both buying school textbooks and paying tuition.
IncludEd is a collaborative effort between Faculty and the Campus Bookstore and is trying to include the cost of books into the cost of tuition. Dr. George Pimentel, vice president of academic affairs, said IncludEd would simplify the process.
“[Students] pay on average 450 to 550 dollars per semester. Renting books with IncludEd would be only 193 dollars per student, on average; that’s a 59 percent savings and you would have the books on day one. It’s an attempt at a win-win, rather than waiting for tuition or waiting for the next paycheck,” said Dr. Pimentel.
Currently, the IncludEd initiative is still only under consideration, as teachers still remain undecided and divided over whether or not they wish to implement it across the board.
“The way it is set up right now, individual instructors tell the Bookstore, ‘Hey I want to use IncludEd,’ and the bookstore sends me a list of professors for spending purposes. It is a convoluted thing right now, and it is really confusing for students the way things are right now,” said Dr. Pimentel.
Dr. Pimentel said he and collaborators currently project the program would institute the online version of the material at 67 dollars per course and the hard copy (renting) version would be 48 dollars per course.
Pimentel also said the hard copy (buyout) would be, theoretically, only 10 dollars more per course and would be a paper copy.
“It may not be the fancy version with covers and stuff, but it would be a portable version that could be placed in a binder. This caters to those who want to hold on to the actual book, rather than read it online. As a parent with mid 20’s children, I can say that my kids have not complained about online as opposed to hard copy,” said Dr. Pimentel.
Dr. Pimentel said he projects that universal professorial consensus would occur by spring 2015 and approval for IncludEd by Tennessee Board of Regions (TBR) would allow for implementation of the initiative in the autumnal semester of 2016.
On an impromptu survey of five students, four out of five students said that they would rather pay for books on the front end, rather than pay for their books out of pocket on the back end; in other words, these students would rather have their books sooner and not have to pay near as much on the back end, rather than pay on average a 450-550 dollars.
Dr. Pimentel said he plans on posting a survey in the near future to help get the students’ feedback and make the movement more on-track with everyone.
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