MOORHEAD — This fall marks the first semester of Concordia College’s Achieve program, an equitable access program for students to receive their ISBN-required course materials for a flat-rate fee.
“All students that take part in the program pay the exact same flat rate fee per semester, regardless of how many credits they’re taking. It is not based on credits, major, or year. The goal is for students and families to find convenience and financial value in the program,” Director of Bookstore Operations PJ Hines said.
The flat-rate fee is calculated based on the total number of credit hours with the average cost of course materials.
Concordia pays the vendor the amount of credit hours for all of the students who have opted into the program, meaning that the more students that opt in and the higher the credit hour rate, the lower the average cost for materials.
Hines reported that 71% of students participated in the Achieve program this semester, which exceeded her predictions for the new program.
Students are automatically opted into the program, but they are allowed to opt out during a time period before the semester starts. For this semester, students had to opt out between July 15 and 31. The opt-out period for spring 2023 is Nov. 15 through 30.
“Although we automatically opt students into the program, the opt-out process is very easy. That’s a big difference at Concordia compared to other programs. Other schools don’t allow opt-outs or it’s a much longer process where students must request to opt out,” Hines said.
There has been a lot of positive feedback regarding how convenient the program is for students, Hines said.
“During move in weekend, all that first-year students had to do was show an ID and pick up their box. They didn’t have to worry about finding their materials or having them in time for class. Course materials are now one less worry for students,” Hines said.
The Achieve program charges students directly on their Concordia student tuition statement, which means less confusion or last-minute credit card purchases at the bookstore, Hines said. Students will know the cost of their ISBN-required course materials ahead of time and will be able to budget for the cost of books earlier.
This program is convenient especially for international students and first year students, who may not be familiar with ordering books or searching for textbooks costs from other sources.
Hines was influential in the development and implementation of the Achieve program. She began researching nearly two years ago to find a program and vendor more suitable for Concordia’s needs and proposed an equitable access model to several departments on campus.
“There’s a typical cookie-cutter model for equitable-access, but that’s not what we wanted to do,” Hines said. “We found a vendor, eCampus, that would allow us to build a program that’s in the best interest for our students and the campus.”
Most vendors limit the number of publishers that faculty can source course material from, but through the partnership with eCampus, faculty have freedom to adopt materials from any publisher Concordia is able to source from, according to Hines.
The Cobber Bookstore is now able to provide 39% of all sourced materials in a digital format after partnering with eCampus, which is higher than previous capacity, according to Hines.
Many students have asked for digital access to books in previous years; however, students who opt-in to the program do not get to choose the format of their books.
Senior Grason Randall opted into the program for the fall semester. As a finance major, his course materials would have cost him approximately $600 if not for Achieve, he said.
“I was not a fan of how they only have (some course materials) online, because I hate online books,” Randall said. “But then again, if it’s so much cheaper, it’s worth it to get it in this format than not being able to get it at all.”
The Achieve program could better serve students if a longer opt-out period was offered, and students were able to choose the format of their required materials, Randall said.
Junior Marissa Piasecki is a psychology major who opted out of the program because the value of her required textbooks was cheaper than the flat-rate fee.
“I decided to opt out because as students we put so much money into going to school, so I thought it was more beneficial to save money,” Piasecki said.
The Achieve program has proved to help save some students money but has also been shown to cost students more money if they don’t opt-out in time.
“I think it’s a great option for people across campus, but you have to be able to do the math on your own and see if it’s cheaper to get materials elsewhere,” Randall said.
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