SAN ANTONIO — Some community college students in Texas will be getting a break on the costs of school, with textbooks made available to rent for free.
The Alamo Colleges District is a collective of five community colleges in the greater San Antonio, Texas area. They have paired up with Barnes & Noble College in a program that will offer free textbooks to all new and returning students during the Spring and Summer 2022 semesters, KSAT reported. The program will be called AlamoBOOKS+.
AlamoBOOKS+ is being funded, in part, by up to $17 million from COVID-19 relief funds from The Alamo Colleges District, WOAI reported.
Survey data from the College Board showed that the average full-time, on-campus undergraduate at a four-year school is estimated to have spent $1,240 on books and supplies during the 2020-2021 school year, per the U.S. News & World Report.
Chancellor Mike Flores of The Alamo Colleges District told Texas Public Radio that the burden of high textbook costs sometimes forces students to go to class unprepared, and the AlamoBOOKS+ program seeks to change that.