Due to a declining budget and fewer student enrollments, the Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) ended its textbook scholarship program this semester.

The program, which started in 2021, was based on a first-come, first-serve basis that aimed to help students cover textbook costs for up to $150. Students submitted an application along with textbook receipts with their class schedules, and ASI would reimburse those expenses to students. The program’s initiative aimed to provide financial assistance to students, which can be significantly expensive during their school tenure.  

In its short tenure, the textbook program had around 120 students enrolled, according to ASI Executive Director Barnaby Peake. He added that recent CSU budget cuts and declining student enrollment meant that not enough ASI student fees were being paid, causing the ASI budget to decline as well. 

“Our budget comes from student body fees, so if there are fewer students, there were fewer dollars coming into ASI to support programs,” Peake said.

A common response that students provided to the UT when asked their thoughts was confusion — many did not know that such a program was even offered. Some students said they would have taken advantage of it had they known about the program.  ASI President Yahir Flores said that ASI could have promoted the program more on social media to bring more awareness. 

“I think there’s always room for improvement in all areas,” Flores said. “It definitely let us know that we got to change our strategies and really focus on a lot of areas of putting out communication, whether it’s email, social media, or any other forms that we do.” 

Students enrolled in the program were notified via email that they would continue to be in the program through the 2024 Spring Semester, but ASI informed students that the textbook scholarship would be phased out and replaced with a new program. 

To help students with textbook costs, ASI is collaborating with the University Library this fall semester and introducing the Scholarly Communication Open Resources eLearning, or SCORE. The SCORE program is a course fund that encourages faculty “to use zero-cost course material and open educational resources for their classes,” according to the library website. 

ASI hopes that the new program will alleviate students’ spending on course materials in the coming years. 

This article was first published in the September 26 print edition of the University Times.