On Aug. 1, the education and technology company Cengage released Cengage Unlimited, the first subscription service for college course materials, giving purchasers access to thousands of e-books, digital learning platforms like WebAssign, and other learning resources.
With many NC State professors turning to Cengage Unlimited as their sole required “course material,” this service is quickly growing in popularity on campus.
Kristina Massari, senior public & media relations manager at Cengage, explained the decision of changing their platform to a subscription-based, digital service, comparing it to streaming sites students use for other services.
“Cengage Unlimited is a subscription service…the first ever of its kind for college course materials,” Massari said. “The idea is that college students, they use Spotify, they use Netflix, subscription services are very familiar to them, so why not use it for course materials?”
According to Massari, Cengage Unlimited provides students with study materials for an array of courses, even those students are not currently taking.
“With Cengage Unlimited you get access to everything we have, so more than 20,000 e-books, our digital learning platforms (WebAssign, MindTap, Aplia), our online study guides and study tools,” Massari said. “This covers over 675 courses in over 70 disciplines. So if you are an English major and you want to learn how to code, you can do that.”
Morgan Trotter, a second-year studying human biology, said she wishes she had access to course materials like homework and e-books after the expiration of the access code.
“I have only had to use Webassign and Cengage for my textbooks,” Trotter said. “I feel like [access codes] are a little overpriced, especially since they are only good for one semester and you don’t have access after.”
Massari said that Cengage has made the important shift from focusing on faculty needs to student needs, thus resulting in Cengage Unlimited.
“For a long time, a lot of companies in our space were focused on faculty and faculty needs first, which is crazy because students are the ones actually using our products,” Massari said. “What we heard loud and clear is that textbooks are too expensive.”
Cengage Unlimited costs $119.99 per semester and $179.99 per year, which according to Massari, if students are using the resource for more than one class, can save students money in the long run compared to buying textbooks.
According to a survey by Morning Consult on behalf of Cengage, “Eighty-five percent of current and former students say that their textbook and course material expenses are financially stressful, more so than meals and food (63 percent), healthcare (69 percent), housing (73 percent) and barely less stressful than tuition (88 percent).”
Hang Nguyen, a first-year studying mathematics, said that in her situation, Cengage Unlimited was worth the cost.
“For me [Cengage Unlimited] was a good deal because I have a lot of classes that need the online textbook,” Nguyen said. “I bought the one year package, and that is definitely more economical than buying single online textbook access codes.”
In addition to WebAssign and textbook access, Massari said there are more opportunities for students who purchase Cengage Unlimited.
“We have started adding more partners to deliver more value to students,” Massari said. “We announced a partnership with Chegg, so students who sign on for Cengage Unlimited get a free month of Chegg tutoring and some of their other services. We also offer a free 30 days of Kaplan Test Prep, and six months of Quizlet Plus.”
While some students like Nguyen prefer the online textbook access, Massari said Cengage Unlimited provides an opportunity for students who prefer print as well: one $7.99 print rental for the whole semester per WebAssign course.
“I would recommend it for classes where you have to use the textbook a lot because it is definitely easier to look at a textbook on your laptop than carry around a huge book everywhere you go,” Nguyen said.
Trotter said students should consider using Cengage Unlimited especially if they have many courses that require Cengage.
“Cengage Unlimited is good if you have multiple courses and you need to get access to the same platform,” Trotter said. “This year it didn’t really apply to me because I only have one class using Cengage, so I didn’t take advantage of it, but last year if Cengage Unlimited would have existed, I would have.”
The Cengage Unlimited trial period, according to Massari, will be extended for those students in North and South Carolina affected by Hurricane Florence.
