Rachel Marwedel
Website Manager
Most students around the ISU campus will recognize the words “Book Bundle.” It’s a program ISU began in the fall semester of 2024. The spring before, posters had sprung up all over campus, announcing a “new way to save on textbooks,” claiming the program would save students 30-50% off of books. At the time, I, an incredibly broke college student, was on the lookout for any way to save money (dumpster diving, anybody?). I sat down and did my research on what the program entailed. And, like many other students around campus would come to find out, I discovered this new opportunity wasn’t for everyone.
The Book Bundle works by having students pay $24.75 per credit hour taken in exchange for receiving all required course materials for classes that semester. For someone taking 13 credit hours and whose classes require buying $700 worth of textbooks, spending $321.75 dollars instead on the Book Bundle is a great idea. But what about someone in the Computer Aided Drafting and Design program, where textbooks are already provided free of charge by the college, and who is taking 14 credit hours? Well, $346.50 is quite a lot to pay for a grand total of nothing. Fortunately, you can opt-out – but opting out takes you through three separate screens, moves the ‘opt-out’ button in a way reminiscent of scamming sites, and requires you to re-opt out every semester.
So, who is the person in this example buying $700 worth of textbooks? Textbooks, mind you, that they can’t keep and can only be rented for the semester. Who is the target audience in this program?
Well, we’d hope it’s the majority of ISU students. But we can’t know for sure. That’s because it turns out that the Book Bundle program is not run by the University at all. Barnes and Noble, a private 3rd-party, for-profit company, runs it. I found this out because I was also interested in who benefitted from the Book Bundle and what the opt-out rate was. All University information and data that’s not personal information is required to be made available by request. So, request I did, and found out that “the Book Bundle was a marketing endeavor executed by the bookstore. The bookstore, doing business as Barnes and Noble, which handles the book bundle, is a private organization and is not subject to public records laws.”
So… is this helping the majority of ISU students? Or is it just another subtle way to squeeze out cash from broke college students? I’d like to think the former, but through talking with students and faculty around campus, I’ve yet to see evidence to prove otherwise.
That’s why the Bengal is collecting its own data on how the Book Bundle has affected students. We want to know what you think! If you are a student, faculty, or staff member at Idaho State University, take our survey shown in the QR codes or find the survey linked on our Instagram.
If you’re a student, have you benefited from the program? Or has it not changed anything for you? Have you had issues with getting books or resources?
If you’re faculty or staff, what have you heard about the Book Bundle? Has your experience changed since the program was implemented?
Next issue, the Bengal will discuss their findings and dive deep into who the Book Bundle is really for: students… or a corporation?
