Results from a survey of NWCCD students
Highest Number of Respondents to a Non-Incentive College Survey
Key Findings
•99% of our students are concerned or very concerned about textbook costs
•86% of our students report buying textbooks and/or bundles which were not significantly used by the instructors who required these materials
•66% of our students report having decided against buying or renting a textbook for one or more classes
•91% of our students who decided against buying or renting a textbook were concerned or very concerned that not acquiring a textbook would hurt their grades
Survey of NWCCD Students (April 2016, 256 respondents)
141 Written Responses to Optional Additional Suggestions
•The college professors could look at alternative choices for required texts. They cold look at teaching out of books that don’t cost so much, but as the teacher, they probably reserve the right to choose what books would best suit students learning.
•There are texts out there that are peer reviewed scholarly materials on the same stuff that we are doing in most of our core classes.
•I wasted money on a book that we didn’t even use once. It was ridiculous and irritating.
•Get instructors to use (free) open source textbooks.
•Don’t require the book for a handful of pages.
•If the class is only going to use the book once or twice, we should be allowed to just check it out.
•Don’t require the latest edition for classes…I spent $300…a classmate spent $30 for the older edition and it was almost identical to mine in content.
•Make all books rentable.
•Colleges are switching to open source textbooks.
•I think the bookstore is greedy.
•Faculty can create their own learning supplements or make them available online to their students to eliminate textbooks for that class.
