At Rio Salado College, we think you should hit the books, not your piggy bank. As part of the college’s mission to provide our community with a flexible, accessible, and affordable education, many of our online courses offer $0 cost or low cost textbook options priced under $40. We’ve now introduced new course search tools to make it even easier to find these zero cost/low cost options.
Sarah Stohr, Rio Salado library faculty at Rio and co-chair of the College's Textbook Affordability Taskforce, shared that she is, "so excited about the rollout of this new search functionality, which adds an additional layer of transparency when it comes to helping students understand what their textbooks will cost. Rio's faculty chairs have done amazing work when it comes to lowering textbook costs for students and our plan is to keep on working toward lowering those costs wherever possible to help ensure our students can focus on what's really important - their learning."
Read on for a breakdown on how these search tools work; you can also find information about our no-cost/low-cost textbooks on this page.
ZTC Makes It Easy
Nearly half of all Rio Salado online courses are $0 textbooks options and many offer low cost (LTC) options. We also have several certificate programs that are 100% textbook cost free (more on those below). To find a class that can save you money on textbooks, go to our Course Search page and follow these steps.
- Go to Advanced Search by clicking on the three horizontal bars icon located on the right side of the search bar (next to the magnifying glass icon).
- You can use Advanced Search to find courses based on either subject or by specific course name/number.
- To search by specific course: type in the course prefix and number in the keyword field. You’ll then have the opportunity to apply filters to narrow your search. You can select Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) or Low Textbook Cost (LTC) or both under the Textbook Cost box at the bottom. The options will be presented as a series of clickable sliders to toggle on or off.
- To search by subject: Leave the keyword section blank. Select a subject in the subject field. Then you can filter using the sliders at the bottom in the Textbook Cost box.
If you’d like an example of how to use these search options, check out this step-by-step instructional video.
Zero Cost Certificate Programs
Interested in saving money while completing a Certificate of Completion or Academic Program at Rio Salado College? We have several programs that are entirely free of textbook costs:
- CCL Administration of Justice
- CCL Addictions and Substance Use Disorders Level I
- CCL Child and Family Organizations Management and Administration
- CCL Legal Studies
- CCL Professional Addictions Counseling
- CCL Substance Use Prevention and Interventions
- CCL Victimology
- CCL Early Childhood Education Management and Administration
- CCL Windows App Development
- CCL Early Childhood Education Management and Administration
- CCL Infant and Toddler Development
- AC Language Studies
- AC Spanish Language and Culture
More Ways to Save
Looking for additional ways to save money while paying for college? Check out some of these stories:
- Planning How to Pay for College? Here are a Few Resources to Help You Save Money & Time
- Scholarships, Grants, and Everything Else You Need To Know About Paying For College
- Financial Self-Care | Rio Salado College