Students who have their books paid for through scholarships are in for a change next semester.
Book Bucks will no longer be transferred to students’ personal bank accounts beginning Spring 2015.
The Book Bucks program will retire this semester and be replaced with a new Book Advanced Program.
The new program will only issue money to students’ StarCards, rather than their personal checking accounts.
An Oct. 3 email notified students of the change. Students who qualify for the Book Advanced Program will receive a credit on their StarCards to be used in the Campus Store.
Students will be able to buy and rent new and used textbooks with the credit.
The credit will remain on students’ StarCards indefinitely and students will still be able to sell books back to the bookstore for cash.
The Book Bucks program gave students two options: they could choose to have the money added to their StarCard or debit account.
“This is really not a fiscally responsible thing for the university to be doing,” said Laura Warren campus store director.
Because students have the money transferred to their personal accounts, there is no way for the university to monitor how the students spent the money.
There have been instances where a student has been advanced money that then does not come back to OCU. If this happens, then the university is out money and there is no way to get it back, Warren said.
“We do not have enough manpower to police something like that,” Warren said.
With the new Book Advanced Program, the university will have transactions of students’ spending and holds will be placed on students’ accounts if they leave the university or misuse funds.
Katie Wonderly, vocal music education senior, has received Book Bucks since her freshman year. Wonderly said it normally is enough money to buy all of her books off of Amazon or from other book brokers. Because the change will only allow her use to funds at the campus store, she will only be able to buy some of her books.
“Of course you can’t guarantee that people are going to spend the money on actual books, so I get that, but for those of us who do spend the money on books, now it is unfair,” Wonderly said.
Students who receive financial aid more than what is necessary for their fees and tuition can apply for the Book Advanced Program. The application will be online beginning in December.
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