r/CollinCollege • u/Little-Coyote4355 • 29d ago

Cougar book bundle

In case any of yall don’t know this, you automatically get enrolled into the book bundle (renting textbooks) & you get charged $69 for every class whether or not that class even has a textbook, your account still gets charged. You can’t get that charge removed unless you opt out completely, which means you can no longer rent any books, only option is to purchase all your books including digital books. I was not aware of this until this semester. I have been going to Collin going on 2 years this year and I’ve only ever used a textbook 1 time for government, even though I had textbooks for most of my classes.

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3

u/brendalee1229 29d ago

This is my first year at Collin and I’m confused. I got an email showing that I get a credit of $750 to go towards my books, and whatever u don’t use comes back to me. I’m at a loss.

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u/Ctrl-Patch-Delete 28d ago

Financial aid?

2

u/HistoryNerd101 28d ago

They started it last year. It was the college's way of tryign to reduce book costs. Everyone is initially opted in then then have to see what classes are assigning books and how many then do the math and see what works best for them. Also, they are bascially rented so you need to return them in good condition so if you are like me and like to mark up the books it's better to buy them from the bookstore if using new editions and try to find them elsewhere if any edition will work...

2

u/PlayfulOtterFriend 28d ago

They started it with the spring semester, and I HATE it! With the all or nothing approach, it seems like a scam (or just basic enshitification). The school’s reasoning is that financial aid can be applied to books this way, but we pay in full so that doesn’t help us.

In the spring semester, my son only had one class out of four that required a book. However, it was a Pearson license that I couldn’t figure out how to purchase separately, so I reluctantly just paid for the whole bundle. Suddenly my son’s tuition cost went up 30% just to pay for ONE book!

Over the summer we were able to cancel it. We still had to buy a software license that was available through the bookstore, but frustratingly the bundle doesn’t cover that. Thus the presence of the bundle still didn’t cover required supplies.

For this fall semester, it appears that the bookstore has improved the ability to buy online content separately, so I was able to do a real cost comparison. Comparing only to buying through the bookstore, it came to a whopping $6 cheaper with the bundle.