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USAC calculator loan program aims to ease financial concerns

Ruhi Patil, USAC Financial Support commissioner, organized an initiative that aims to lend scientific calculators to students who cannot afford to buy their own. Patil said the library will have 95 calculators by the end of the quarter. (Daily Bruin file photo)

By Bekhzod Aliev

April 4, 2016 11:12 p.m.

An undergraduate student government office is creating a calculator loan program that will launch later this week.

Ruhi Patil, USAC Financial Support commissioner, organized the initiative, which aims to lend calculators to students who cannot afford to buy their own. The service will provide mostly TI-30X scientific calculators and Canon LS-100TS calculators, as well as some TI-83 graphing calculators.

Patil said the library will have 95 calculators by the end of the quarter, and hopes to expand the program to provide more calculators. She added her office applied to receive $770 from USAC funds to purchase the calculators.

Standard TI-83 graphing calculators cost more than $90 at Amazon.com and Wal-Mart. Patil said creating a loan library would save many students the expense of buying a calculator they may only use for one quarter.

Patil said the calculator loan program will resemble the way laptops are currently loaned to students in Powell Library’s Campus Library Instructional Computing Commons. A student would scan their BruinCard and borrow the calculator for a few hours to use in class before returning it, Patil added.

Patil’s commission also operates the iClicker loan library and the lab coat loan program, among other initiatives that aim to address the financial concerns of undergraduate students.

Patil said many students, especially those in the Academic Advancement Program, or AAP, and peer learning programs, tend to come from underserved communities that cannot afford calculators, and may use the program while enrolled in math-intensive courses.

Eduardo Paez, a fourth-year biology student, said he thinks buying a calculator is a financial burden for many students.

“(Money spent on a calculator) could be … put toward food or other textbooks,” Paez said.

Reyna Galarza, a first-year psychobiology student in AAP, said she was lucky to receive her calculator as a gift.

“I can relate to (calculators being a financial burden) … especially for minority students,” Galarza said.

Patil said she hopes to find off-campus sponsors to fund the program in the future.

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