Brown University To Cover Textbook Costs For Low-Income Students

PROVIDENCE, RI — Brown University officials announced earlier this week that the school will expand its pilot textbook assistance program to hundreds of additional students for the upcoming year. One year after launching the program with 85 students, the university will offer it to 1,100 students during the 2019-2020 school year.

The pilot program was launched last year after the number of students coming from families with incomes below $60,000 increased by more than 200 percent over the past decade. To help ease the financial burden, the university provided textbook and course material costs for 85 first-year students.

Brown News said that students who took part in the pilot program have overwhelmingly satisfied, saying it allows them to choose classes without worrying about the financial ramifications.

For the upcoming school year, approximately 1,100 students will be accepted into the program, determined by the financial aid office. They will have all textbook and course materials provided, free of charge, by simply swiping their student ID at the university bookstore.

Brown's financial aid office reported that textbook costs can be as high as $1,300 per year

The university has made strides to increase the number of low-income students through several initiatives, including the introduction of an admissions process that does not consider finances in 2003 and replacing loans with scholarship funds at the beginning of the current academic year.