Pioneering what could lead to a new age in academia, Cengage
Learning launched Cengage Unlimited on Aug. 1.
The new service is a digital learning subscription designed
to save students money on textbooks each semester. After paying an access fee,
the student then has access to almost the full library of textbooks Cengage has
to offer.
“What we decided they needed were fundamentally two things,
which was based on what the students and faculty told us,” CEO of Cengage
Michael Hansen said. “One, they want quality material, they want the materials
that get them through the class, that allow them to pass in as easy a way as
possible while still learning something. And secondly, we want affordability.
That led to the birth of Cengage Unlimited.”
Cengage offers more than 20,000 products across 70
disciplines. For $119.99, the student gains access to the library of textbooks
for four months. For $179.99, the user gains access for a full year, and for
$239.99 the student will receive a two-year subscription. Even after the
subscription ends, users will retain reference access to their course materials
for the first year for free.
“The way you consume video, is in all likelihood, you have a
Netflix subscription,” Hansen said. “The way you consume music is that, in all
likelihood, you have a Spotify or iTunes subscription. And we said, we can
essentially do the same thing in higher education for course materials.
Therefore, we opened up our entire catalogue of products.”
Thus far, this sort of service is unprecedented in the
textbook business.
“Typically new
startups came in and revolutionized businesses,” Hansen said. “It was not the
record companies who invented Spotify. It was some guys in a garage who
invented it because they saw the customer need. And frankly, the incumbent
players, like the record companies, ignored the consumer. I think that we, as
one of the few companies in an industry, were the incumbents. We were part of
the problem, and we decided to be the solution. If you ask the people at
Cengage, that is probably the thing that we are the most proud of.”
Cengage Unlimited partnered with Chegg to offer subscribers
a month of free access to Chegg’s Learning Services. Unlimited subscribers will
also gain 30-day free access to Kaplan Test Prep materials and 6-month free
trial of Quizlet Plus.
“This is essentially what students told us: they want to be
part of a learning hub,” Hansen said. “We, essentially, want to be advocates
for the students. Whether we sell this particular product or not doesn’t
matter. This is obviously additional value for the students who buy this
subscription. We ultimately, are putting them in a position to be more
successful in their learning experience.”
Students can purchase their subscription straight from the
Cengage website or at bookstores on or off campus.