Survey shows frustration with bookstore and textbook usage

By Cole Johnson

Staff Writer

In an unscientific survey by The Gatepost of 250 students, 38.5% of the students who bought books from the FSU bookstore said they experienced difficulty acquiring their books for Fall 2025.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 25 and Dec. 11. Students were asked how many books they purchased for the semester, how much they spent on books, and how they acquired their books, among other topics.

Robert Totino, vice president of Finance, Technology and Administration, said this figure was unexpected. “I was surprised - not in a good way - to see so many students having to have difficulty there.”

In July of 2025, after a decades-long relationship with bookstore vendor Follett, Framingham State began five-year contracts with eCampus.com to provide books and academic materials, as well as University Gear Shop (UGS) for merchandise.

Totino, who oversees the bookstore operation, said he worked with the Dean of Students Office and the Office of Marketing & Communications to alert students of the new system over the summer.

“We tried to get at least two or three campus emails out to the students … but no matter how many times you try to communicate, communicate, communicate, [problems can occur] on any level,” he said.

According to Totino, eCampus.com manages the portal where students place orders for books, and their “brick-and-mortar” partner, UGS, receives those orders.

Phil Catalogna, assistant manager of the bookstore, said he knew there would be some difficulties with the new model.

“It was our first semester with the new system,” he said. “So there were a lot of learning curves and hiccups along the way, but I think this semester has been much smoother compared to last.”

Bookstore difficulties

Of the complaints regarding the bookstore, the most common was slow delivery times. Fifty-four percent of survey respondents who encountered problems buying from the bookstore cited issues with slow delivery or packages not arriving.

“One of my books that I rented never arrived, so I have no book to return,” one survey respondent said.

Catalogna said there could be multiple reasons for delays.

“Some of the professors did not order the books on time, so they didn't have them at the warehouse for the kids to order yet,” he said. “Some of them would just delay due to volume - more kids ordered the books than they thought.”

“Sometimes, things get lost in the mail, too,” he added. “We do our best to get that rectified as quickly as possible, though.”

Of the survey respondents who reported negative experiences with the bookstore, 21.6% said they experienced technological issues with the bookstore website.

Psychology major Anjanique Santos said a system error caused her class to purchase unnecessary materials.

“One of my classes said that we needed eight books, but the FSU bookstore had a glitch in their system, and we apparently didn’t need any of the books for that class. [It] led to a long issue with returning the books,” she said.

Several students had concerns about incorrect labeling on the website.

Sophomore English major Roman Sisson said books and their corresponding reading guides often have identical titles on the bookstore site. “So you accidentally buy a guide to reading the book instead of the thing you actually wanted.”

Catalogna said students can use a chat feature on the eCampus website to report any difficulties, and can also email them with any questions or concerns.

According to Provost Kristen Porter-Utley, students can voice complaints about the bookstore to faculty.

“Probably the best thing for students to do is to talk to their faculty members and ask their faculty members to talk to their chairs,” she said. “[Faculty] don't sit well with things that are going wrong for students. … They generally let us know about it.”

Totino said he would relay the major student complaints to eCampus.

Book usage

Seventy-seven percent of survey respondents said they had taken courses where books were ordered that were used “little or not at all.”

Porter-Utley said this statistic was “really disappointing.

“Somewhere in the 20-30% range is what I would expect,” she said.

Lorretta Holloway, vice president of Student Success, said she was skeptical of this number.

She said students can have different expectations for what constitutes using a textbook, especially based on their experiences in high school.

“There are still districts where people don't have books for them to take home,” she said.

“They're literally going over the stuff in the book [in class], as opposed to having people read, do an assignment, and then come in to talk about what's in the book - and not talk about it as in going over it, but using it,” she said.

“If I'm not used to that kind of learning or interaction or relationship to text, then I'm going to think that I didn't use the book,” she said.

Holloway said this was not always the case, however.

“I've had students who have said to me, ‘I don't even have to do this stuff, because everything is in the PowerPoint, and all we do is read the PowerPoint … and so I don't even have to go to class,’” she said. “That's not the student's fault.”

One survey respondent said, “Almost every time I buy a book for class, it is either never used, or used so little that a breakdown of what it’s about would be more than sufficient. Paying $100 for something we use for a week is ridiculous.”

Another survey respondent said, “If the course is not really going over the textbook, [and] the teacher just uses it for their own personal slides, then we shouldn’t be required to buy it.”

For many respondents, this issue compounded with another common obstacle.

Expenses and payment

The greatest percentage of students, 28.4%, said they typically pay between $100-200 for books in a semester. Twenty-one percent said they spend $50-100 on books. Sixteen percent said they spend between $200-300.

Another 16.4% of students said they typically paid nothing for their books. Seven percent of students said they paid upwards of $300.

Porter-Utley said, “The amount students spend on textbooks to me didn't seem very surprising. I think it's always all been a lot. So, I've never been satisfied with the amount of money that students spend on textbooks.”

To pay for their books, 64.4% of students said they used personal funds. Nineteen percent and 5.2% said they used book vouchers and financial aid, respectively.

Holloway said these numbers surprised her, and made her wonder whether the options of book vouchers and financial aid were being communicated enough to students.

She said the high percentage may be in part due to how students sometimes conflate financial aid and personal funds.

“I do know some students, when they think about financial aid, it's not any money that they're getting to buy supplies. It’s the money that's automatically transferred to a bill,” she said.

She added the binary nature of the survey question didn’t make it clear whether students used multiple methods to pay for books.

“If I've got a book voucher for $500, and one of my books is a third of that amount, then I probably am going to have to pay out of pocket,” she said. “So what's the proportion?”

In combination with textbooks that were used infrequently, students expressed frustration with book prices.

Studio Art major Makenzie Coutu said textbooks were a significant financial burden for her.

“I only had to read half of each book I spent $200 on in total,” she said. “I understand the need to buy entire novels, but other types of text should be unnecessary for me to spend so much money on. I can barely pay my tuition, even with all of my scholarships, as is.”

Another survey respondent said, “Some folks financially struggle but don’t receive book vouchers, so their friends that do have leftover book voucher funds will buy books for them. I’ve done this before.”

Holloway said faculty sometimes aren’t aware of the expense of books for students.

“Sometimes, faculty don't know what things cost, because generally you get a sample copy when you order a certain number of books. And you get an update if it's a new edition, and when you're getting a sample copy, you don't see what that costs.”

Porter-Utley said there are some initiatives that could positively impact affordability.

“There are faculty members who are being paid to develop their own textbooks for classes, which come at a much, much lower price,” she said. “I think more and more faculty members with more success are doing that now to help address the cost of books.”

“Some faculty don't require books,” she added. Of the survey respondents, 26% said they did not purchase any books for the semester.

“I think that is a trend that is increasing at a lot of our institutions because faculty realize the cost of resources, but there are some disciplines which stay married to textbooks, and expensive ones,” she said.

Digital vs. physical

The survey showed a narrow preference for digital books among students, with 52% of survey respondents saying they preferred digital books, and 48% saying they preferred physical books.

Sixty-seven percent of students said they acquired course books digitally for the fall semester.

Of the students who preferred digital copies, 62.2% said they preferred them due to convenience. Twenty-one percent said they picked them due to cost.

eReaders accounted for 44.3% of digital book acquisitions. The remaining 55.7% of survey respondents said they acquired books in a way that incurred no cost, with 44.9% using digital archive websites, and 10.8% using piracy.

A survey respondent said, “I like physical books more, but due to cost, I'm forced to go online.”

Another survey respondent said, “Unfortunately, piracy is extremely easy and free, so the only thing the University could do is make the textbooks cheaper. It is very hard to compete with having all your textbooks free to download with one Google search, especially when the alternative is paying over $100 for books you can't Ctrl + F in.”

Seventy-four percent of survey respondents said they obtained physical copies of their books. Of these survey respondents, 41.4% preferred physical books for their tangibility.

Porter-Utley said this surprised her. “I hear that a lot from folks who are my generation, that they really like just the feel of having a paper textbook, but [this] really surprised me."

Holloway was similarly interested.

“There's this kind of expectation that everybody wants everything online,” she said. “Some people learn in a very tactile way that online doesn't work [for].”

Another 36.8% of survey respondents said they preferred physical books to help minimize technological distractions.

Totino said, “I was happy to see that there's a good mix of students who use both platforms - both the hard copy and the online periodical.”

Holloway said the introduction of online materials has improved the efficiency of research and citations.

“A lot of the texts are better now, because they have different kinds of clear citations,” she said. “But in the olden days, you'd get books that had no page numbers, and people would be like, ‘How am I supposed to tell you what page it’s on?’

“The technology has definitely improved,” Holloway added. “But the movement towards trying to do more things online is because of cost.”

The future of textbooks and the bookstore

By far, the most common suggestion in the survey was to make books more affordable and accessible for the University by transitioning to using online books. Many suggested professors should post textbooks digitally for students to access.

Earth System Science major Hudson Maher said, “I have had several professors choose to use only free textbooks and give out the links to find them. This should be the norm.”

Economics major Shayan Zaidi said this was already the case for her courses.

“Most of my economic professors that I had here already have the book included in the class fees, and teach us how to activate it on the first day,” she said. “That way, we don't have to buy it or activate the books by ourselves.”

One survey respondent said, “I just think since professors tend to reuse the same books, they should just be able to find a digital version and put it on Canvas. Completely reduces a lot of problems.”

Other survey respondents argued the University should include books with tuition.

Psychology major Abrianna Ouellette said, “We already pay thousands of dollars for the class. The book should be included.”

A survey respondent said FSU should “have professors provide books through their classes and attach the charge to that of tuition. Or lower the prices of the books; I should not be paying hundreds of dollars in one semester for books that I might not even use.”

Another survey respondent echoed this sentiment. “To ask kids who are paying thousands already to pay an extra $200+ every semester for books that aren’t always used very consistently is crazy.”

Another survey respondent said they weren’t optimistic about the University’s ability to adapt.

“People in my classes found links to free versions of the textbooks. I know the University just wants our money, so they don’t care,” they said. “If they did, it would be nice if they could jot down those kinds of links and send them out to students as alternatives when they can’t afford to spend hundreds on a textbook with pages missing and the cover destroyed.”

Some survey respondents advocated for more recycling of books.

Maher said, “I know we have students who buy books and then return them - why not have the used books be accessible for free or for much cheaper?

“I have also seen textbooks in the free bins by the fashion labs,” he added. “Students are already willing to give up their books. Just put up a shelf for them and maybe a sign-out sheet.”

One survey respondent said the University should “allow us to return books for full price back, especially if we barely use them.”

Some survey respondents were frustrated by the lack of physical books on campus, expressing a desire to bring back a location to buy and sell physical books.

According to Porter-Utley, the terms of the University’s contract would not allow for this. “The deal was that we would not have a physical footprint on our campuses for a bookstore.”

Totino said, “I don't see that happening, but it doesn't mean we can't ask.”

Catalogna said, “There's really no way for us to keep books on the shelves here at the store. It's all done through eCampus offsite.”

According to Totino, the Campus Store will eventually be moved to the McCarthy Center as part of the Campus Master Plan, but he estimated the development to be “one to two years away.”

[ Editor’s Note: Survey results can be found online at www.fsugatepost.com. ]