Coastline College Military Program Introduces the $50 Textbook Incentive for Early Registration

Fountain Valley, CA, July 03, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Coastline Community College extended its commitment to the military by offering textbooks to its onshore military students at a capped price of $50. Spouses of active duty military personnel already and will continue to receive their textbooks at no charge through the college's Military Spouse Program. With the national average of a textbook costing over $100, the college's textbook initiative will provide all textbooks for a given course at the maximum price of $50.

"We wanted to somehow drive these costs down and fix them as low as we possibly could to make educational opportunities less of a hardship for our servicemembers and their families," stated Ed McKenney, Dean of Military Programs. "It didn't make sense to us to have textbooks costing a hundred or two hundred dollars. That can be a real deterrent to obtaining your education and this $50 textbook program puts education back in reach for our onshore military students," he added.

While the college has struggled to keep textbook prices in the military program as low as possible for many years, some under $50 already, costs have continued to increase. With this one-of-a-kind program, if there are two textbooks for a course the enrolled military student would still pay a maximum of fifty dollars and would receive both textbooks. The $50 textbook program is intended to encourage early registration, optimize efficiency and provide a savings opportunity to military students.

Coastline, a California Community College located in Fountain Valley, is a major provider of courses to the military. A regionally accredited college, Coastline is a member of Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges, works with every branch of service to provide distance learning courses to stateside and deployed military personnel and has been consistently selected and recognized as a top "military friendly" college. In the 2007-08 academic year, Coastline’s military enrollments exceeded 22,000. The college awarded 49% of all the Associate degrees in the Navy in the 2007-08 academic year. A military student enrolling at Coastline is eligible to receive up to 40 credits for his military experience, training and testing. According to guidelines set forth by the American Council on Education & Schools (ACES), formal military training and CLEP /DSST testing translates directly into college credits. "Often a Soldier, Sailor, Coastie, Marine or Airman may only need four to six courses with Coastline to obtain their Associate Degree and points toward their promotion," stated McKenney. "With Tuition Assistance available from the government and our low tuition rate coupled with this $50 cap on textbooks for a course, we feel we're one of the lowest cost providers of a quality Associate degree out there. Our goal is to help these servicemembers get the credit they deserve with an Associate degree that transfers directly into over 1,800 affiliated Servicemember Opportunity Colleges throughout the United States."

The $50 textbook program officially begins in the Fall 2009, which opens for enrollment June 15th. Coastline's Military Program offers 5 internet sessions, each 8 weeks long, per year and well over one hundred different courses.

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