One of the many new initiatives rolled out by the University of Maine this year is the Academic Materials Program (AMP),  designed to alleviate the academic burden of textbook-buying by providing all course materials at a flat rate of $239.99. This could be a great deal for students with specific majors, but the problem is that many students’ book costs are well under this rate. 

The books provided by AMP are almost all digital, which presents difficulties for many students. The rollout of the program has led to confusion among students, not knowing how to go about learning if the program is worth it or its opt-out policy. Finally, the opt-out policy itself is confusing and may influence students to stay in the program, even if it’s a loss for them.

Textbooks are expensive; this is something that I will not argue. However, the university is greatly overstating how much textbooks cost the average student. On the FAQ website for the program, the university asserts that the average cost of textbooks per student per semester is $500. As an English student, I know that this number does not represent me. I am primarily buying novels for my courses at this point. , and they tend to cost less than textbooks. I have met a wide range of students from a wide range of majors and not once have I heard of a booklist coming out to $500, even with the inclusion of various lab kits. 

There are, however, definitely lists that come out to more than $239.99. I initially thought of studio art students when I heard of the program, since I knew they typically have to buy kits that can cost upwards of $100 per course. However, the materials list becomes so specialized for each class as the curriculum advances that the kits are not sold in the bookstore past some introductory courses like Drawing I. That means they aren’t even reaping the benefits of AMP for more than a year.

The rollout was not well understood by students or professors, many of whom still don’t really understand. There were promises of a tab in Brightspace where students could go to see their course lists to figure out how much course materials would cost and also opt-out right from that page. The “How to opt-out” question on the FAQ website mentions a place in Brightspace to opt-out, which does not exist. I had to call the book store directly to opt-out of the program myself, and I imagine many other students share this experience. I was hesitant to opt-out at first, because I was unsure if I’d still be able to pay for the digital copy of my textbook. Last year, the same textbook through the same program would’ve just been tacked onto my bill, but this year once I opted out of AMP I could not even pay to keep it. 

While I do believe that AMP has merit as a program, I do not think it lives up to its potential. The fact that students are being automatically opted-in leads me to believe that this program was designed less so for the good of students and rather for the economic wellbeing of the school which was anticipating a downward trend of enrollment that didn’t happen.  

I should emphasize that UMaine referred to equitable access textbooks as a revenue “growth opportunity” in their presentation to the Board of Trustees at a meeting this May. I am not against the AMP program as a whole, since it’s saving some students  money, but that portion of students may not be as big as they’re reporting. Search your textbooks and do the math before the deadline to opt out on Sept. 18. If this program returns next semester, I’d like to see it be a manual opt-in, rather than automatic.