Normandale Community College is committed supporting student success inside and outside of the classroom. Part of this commitment will be offering Z-degree courses with zero-costs for textbooks or other instructional materials starting Spring 2025.
Along with scholarships, cohort programs, state initiatives such as the North Star Promise and Workforce Scholarships, Z-degrees are designed to keep costs down for students.
Zero-textbook-cost courses will allow any Normandale student to complete an Associate of Arts (AA) – Liberal Arts and Sciences degree, and Minnesota State Transfer Curriculum course without the additional cost of textbooks. Z-degree courses offer Normandale students an efficient way to reduce education expense and complement in-class learning, while providing the same quality and challenging academic instruction.
These courses are open to all students regardless of intended major or academic goal. There is no special application to participate in a zero-textbook-cost course. These courses are an opportunity to help you save money because you do not have to buy a textbook. Your courses will still meet the academic rigor and learning outcomes of courses that require textbooks.
"For my asynchronous Visual Arts course, I use an online, crowd-sourced art history textbook called Smarthistory,” said Normandale Art Instructor Louise Fischer. “The writing you would find on this website is rigorous and written by scholars in the field, just like a physical textbook. But beyond that, it also features video content and links to other websites which make the content customizable and interactive! I also like the way it's collaborative and constantly evolving which is unique to an online, crowd-sourced textbook."
Students will be able to register in the fall 2024 for spring 2025 Z-degree courses. Normandale will be posting more information in August 2024 to provide all of the information and frequently-asked questions at normandale.edu/z-degrees.
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