On Wednesday, MTV launched a new Facebook application that enables prospective college students to search for information about scholarships and financial aid through their online profiles, The New York Times reported. The application, called My College Dollars, will use information found on a student's Facebook profile to fill out a form that returns scholarship and financial aid opportunities tailored to their interests and backgrounds. My College Dollars is a combined effort of MTV, the College Board, the Get Schooled campaign and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the application is targeted primarily at low and middle-income students who might be unaware of financial aid possibilities like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to The Times. MTV plans to increase student awareness by involving celebrities in tutorial videos, using Facebook notifications and advertising the application on the MTV network, The Times reported.
Administrators at Cornell University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin announced plans to purchase electronic versions of textbooks to lower the high costs of buying printed books, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Wednesday. With the new model of textbook acquisition, which is already used by Indiana University, students would pay a course materials fee to their university, that would cover the cost of all their textbooks for the term. Institutions of higher education would be able to buy e-textbooks in bulk at discounted prices from the books' publishers, according to The Chronicle. Although the model is currently only supported by McGraw-Hill, publishers are interested in the experiment because it prevents students from buying textbooks secondhand, ensuring a constant source of revenue, The Chronicle reported. Students at Indiana University saved approximately $25 per book using this method, according to the university's data. The project negotiated by Internet2, a research and higher education consortium that focuses on technology resources remains in its pilot stage, but could see a promising future following publisher support, according to The Chronicle.
