Textbooks Free for Winter Semester Students

By Nolan Cleary, Managing Editor

With the end of the year approaching, many students are preparing for the beginning of Winter. For some choosing to attend Hudson Valley Community College, that could mean the beginning of Winter classes. 

For many students involved in Winter classes, however, they may be in for a surprise. The bookstore at Hudson Valley has announced that they will be providing free textbooks to students during the two week period of classes. 

The announcement came via the HVCC website. “We know that many students struggle with the cost of higher education, especially in these difficult times,” President Roger Ramsammy said via the website. 

Kevin Waltz is the former Editor-in-Chief of The Hudsonian and will be taking classes online in the Winter. Waltz said, given his experience with the high costs of textbooks, he was pleasantly surprised to hear the news.

“I definitely like the sound of that actually. When I first heard about that, it sounded like something that was too good to be true because textbooks are usually pretty expensive. I can definitely see how that’d be extremely helpful for some students,” Waltz said. 

Waltz said the decision was a major surprise for him. “Textbooks are kind of the thing that schools really make their money on. So to hear that they’re going to give textbooks away for free is as one of their revenue sources is shocking to me,” Waltz said. 

In the past, the HVCC bookstore has received criticism for the high prices of their books. Waltz believes the COVID-19 pandemic could be the reason why the book store and the college chose to make the decision. 

“It probably has a lot to do more than anything with COVID-19. That would be my first guest. The transition online has probably hurt the demand. It’s all speculative, but it has probably hurt the demand and colleges are moving more towards digital learning and there’s a lot more demand for e-textbooks,” Waltz said. 

Waltz said he thinks the college’s move toward online learning and textbooks last semester might have been a step toward this decision. 

“I find it interesting that [the bookstore at Hudson Valley Community College] is giving away free textbooks, but I’m also not totally surprised, because last Spring, I know a lot of classes were starting to move towards OER, which is Open Educational Resources, so like [when it comes to] online reading material that you don’t have to pay for, I know a lot of classes were starting to use those. I’ve seen the college do things that are indicative of wanting to help students, especially considering the work at community colleges, and that a lot of people are pretty strapped finically, so I guess that’s one of my observations,” Waltz said. 

Waltz said he himself had experience with open educational classes as well. “I had some classes where they were pushing Open Educational Resource stuff, which is kind of like getting a reading assignment, and it was a reading pulled from a source material that isn’t from a specific textbook. It’s very effective but it’ll relate to the lesson, and then you’ll use that, and then there won’t be a textbook for that class,” Waltz said. 

In a statement to the Hudson Valley website, Ramsammy said, putting students first is the college’s top priority. “In addition to freezing our annual tuition at its 2019 level, [free textbooks] is just another way we can help students stay on track in achieving their higher education goals,” Ramsammy said.