No matter what higher education course you study, there will always be required reading (and wider reading) to complete.

And if you’re buying paper textbooks for every module, these can quickly add up to a hefty financial cost.

The costs associated with buying textbooks will vary from course to course, but the one thing you can always be certain about is that they’re expensive! In fact, “According to official data, textbook inflation since 1977 is 1,041 per cent– almost four times the overall rate of inflation.” This means that today’s typical student can expect to budget between £450 and £1070 for books and equipment per year.

This can seem like an impossibly high amount for many students, especially when considering the UK’s ever-rising tuition and accommodation fees. It’s no surprise that “81% of UK students feel that universities should be offering textbooks for free as part of their fees.”

Here at University of Essex Online, our mission is to make education accessible to everyone. This is why the core textbooks are always provided free of charge to our students, included within the course fees.

This obviously adds up to considerable savings for every student. It could be argued that students can borrow books from the university library, but this often involves long waiting lists and pressure to read before the return date to avoid a late fine. Some libraries have even been known to charge as much as £1 per hour for short-term loan books returned late!

Again, this is where University of Essex Online steps in to help you out: our students also have access to an online library of e-textbooks, e-journals and resources. These books can be downloaded then accessed at any time on an e-reader, computer or mobile device with no time limit, fines or costs.

The benefits of an e-library for our part-time students also include the ability to find, download and read books from wherever you are saving you precious time to manage your work/study/life balance.

So if you’re interested in studying for a degree, but don’t fancy spending hundreds of pounds on textbooks you’ll only use once, download our prospectus today.