When I started this semester at UR, I expected the usual chaos of new classes, schedules, and meeting professors. What I didn’t expect was to be left without a single textbook in the first week, despite seeing my tuition rise an additional $1,310 for the new UR Essentials textbook program over the usual annual increase.
To start: my calculus textbook order was auto-cancelled five times. My economics book wasn’t even in the system. After five cancelled orders, multiple calls, and countless emails, I was still left empty-handed. The responses I received from Barnes & Noble and the University were little more than finger-pointing. Meanwhile, I watched the first week of classes slip by without the materials I needed.
This isn’t just my individual problem — it’s a systemic one. UR Essentials is a semi-mandatory program with no incentive to opt-out. Students are forced to pay regardless of whether it benefits them or not. Worse, the University’s own Financial Aid office has confirmed to me that this scheme has raised the real cost of attendance. In their words:
“Last year, we were budgeting for books and supplies … Your cost of attendance last year would have been $1,310 in books and supplies … If the $1,310 was still in the cost of attendance, your grant would have been increased by $1,310 to account for buying books.”
In plain English, this means that last year, financial aid covered books and supplies — everything from notebooks to computers. This fall, that allowance is gone. Instead, we are all forced into a program that only covers rental textbooks, and poorly at that. For me, that meant losing access to financial aid for essentials like a computer while being charged excessively for books I neither needed nor received on time. With an undergrad student population of 6,700, if everyone at UR is now expected to cover the $1,310 increase, the University will bring in an additional $8,777,000. Of course, the program will cost the University money to run, but certainly nowhere near as much as the millions in additional revenue they will gain.
Even when the program “works,” it’s a raw deal. My calculus book showed up in an oversized cardboard box. The amount of waste generated in shipping and packaging is staggering, especially when universities claim to be environmentally conscious. Almost a month in, and I’m still using an online version.
From a business perspective, UR Essentials is a gold mine: funnel every student through the bookstore, guarantee revenue, and drive foot traffic for additional sales. But from a student’s perspective, it’s forced consumption with no added value. Many of us know full well that the same books can be found online for free or at much lower cost.
When I raised these concerns directly to representatives of the program, I was told that staff did not intend for UR Essentials to raise the cost of student attendance. If true, this shows a troubling lack of transparency in how this program was rolled out. If not, it means students are being misled into accepting an entirely unnecessary financial burden.
UR Essentials may have been created with good intentions, but in practice it has become a rushed, poorly planned, and financially harmful program. It strips away student choice, wastes resources, and burdens families already struggling with rising tuition and cost of living.
As students, we deserve better than to be treated as captive consumers. We deserve transparency, choice, and programs that actually support, not exploit, our education. UR should allow students to opt out if they wish and not have to pay for a program they’re not using. Until then, UR Essentials will remain what it feels like to many of us: a mandatory money grab disguised as a “benefit.”
