A NSW University Will Provide Its Students With Digital Textbooks Free Of Charge
Now you can afford to pay for luxury items...like food.
Nothing kills the excitement of a brand new uni semester like having to fork out hundreds of dollars for textbooks. It’s for this reason that Western Sydney University deserves a fair bit of credit for its ~radical~ new plan to provide its students with digital curriculum material completely free of charge.
In 2017 more than 10,000 new WSU undergraduate students will each receive around $800 worth of digital textbooks at no cost, in what the university has labeled one of the biggest initiatives of its kind anywhere in the world.
“Our students told us that purchasing the textbooks they needed was one of the biggest financial hurdles to studying, so we wanted to help in a practical way,” said WSU Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Barney Glover in a statement accompanying the announcement. “With the average textbook retailing at $100 and often significantly more, our digital textbook program will reduce the financial burden for our new students.”
The digital textbook rollout will replace a three year scheme that provided new WSU students with a free iPad. Crucially, the university will not provide students with devices on which to read their textbooks, meaning you’ll need to supply your own laptop, tablet device or smartphone.
Earlier this year a spokesperson for the National Union of Students called the cost of textbooks “a massive problem.” At least now students at WSU will be able to splurge on luxury items…like food and public transport, for example.