With the start of another school year come many changes, one of those being new technology in the classroom. I was introduced this year to McGraw-Hill’s “Connect” for a 100-level music class. The choice was to either buy a $100 textbook that had the code for Connect or pay an astounding $40 for the access code to it and the book as well. Instead of using Blackboard for simple multiple-choice questions, we are expected to pay for digital access to something that fails to improve the learning experience. One would think that these massive companies like McGraw-Hill make enough revenue by updating their textbooks seemingly every year. The future will only hold more cost for “updating” and “accessing” online features that can be done the same way they have at the university for hundreds of years. When everything on the Internet can be found for free in this day and age, why should a simple program like this cost this much to students?
Nick Kroncke is a sophomore studying environmental geography.
