VitalSource Inclusive Access Programs Save Students $17.7 million

June 5, 2019

RALEIGH - VitalSource announced today that Inclusive Access (IA) programs saved students more than $17.7 million in the 2018-2019 academic year.

The savings were calculated by reviewing more than 100 institutions’ IA programs and represent a 30 percent cost reduction from the digital list price; savings off the cost of new print products total more than $79 million.

“Students should never have to jeopardize their academic success because they can’t afford their textbooks. That’s why our top priority at VitalSource is ensuring students can access the best course materials at the lowest possible price,” said Dr. Michael Hale, vice president of education at VitalSource. “We’re excited to help students nationwide save more than $17 million this school year, thanks to our growing catalog of Inclusive Access materials and the support of our publishing partners, and we look forward to helping more students lower their college costs even further in the future.”

Inclusive Access programs have become increasingly popular on U.S. college campuses in recent years. Since spring 2017, participation in Inclusive Access increased 650% due in part to the launch of the national Inclusive Access pricing catalog. The catalog, created by VitalSource in collaboration with publishers, makes it faster and easier for instructors, and campus stores to see how much students can save through Inclusive Access because it creates readily-available Inclusive Access pricing. The catalog currently includes over 800,000 unique titles - and new publisher catalogs are added daily.

According to a study conducted by Wakefield Research in 2018, 85% of students delay or avoid the purchase of required materials due high costs. Through the Inclusive Access model, all students are given access to digital course materials on day one of classes through their institution’s Learning Management System.

Campus stores also recognize the value of Inclusive Access. Ricky Carney II, Textbook Manager for University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said, “The store ultimately makes the decision if a course will go into IA and we’re doing it responsibly; we’re not putting anything into the program where we see that students can get a lower price in another format or elsewhere."  

About VitalSource | get.vitalsource.com

VitalSource Technologies LLC, part of Ingram Content Group, is improving the learning experience by making it easier to create and deliver effective and affordable content. The preferred choice among educational institutions and companies for digital learning materials, VitalSource helps over 1,000 educational content providers create and deliver seamless interactive learning experiences through its exclusive Bookshelf® platform to millions of learners at 7,000 institutions. Bookshelf users opened more than 20 million digital textbooks last year and read more than 3.3 billion pages. Follow VitalSource on Twitter at @VitalSource.