Students can expect to save some money on textbooks this Fall.
Starting this semester, students get a 7 percent tax break, along with the option to price match at the University of Florida Bookstore.
Student Government helped lobby for the tax break at the state legislature during the June special session, UF Student Body President Joselin Padron-Rasines said.
"This lobbying was part of an entire effort to make college more affordable," she said.
Follett, the company that operates the UF Bookstore, also started price matching as a pilot program at 10 schools last year, Haleigh Morgan, senior external communications specialist for Follett, wrote in an email.
The program was introduced to more than 300 schools, including UF, this Fall, she said.
Students receive a gift card with the difference between the price of the book at the UF Bookstore and one from another retailer, like Amazon or Chegg, said Robert Blake, the UF Bookstore store director. The gift card does not have an expiration date.
Public relations sophomore Brooke Williams said she found out about the price-matching program in an email from the bookstore.
"They were able to give me a gift card of $162," the 19-year-old said. "I’m just going to use it to buy other textbooks."
While this is the first time the UF Bookstore is matching prices, the Florida Bookstore, located at 1614 W. University Ave., has done price matching in the past. UF political science senior Leah Sigillo has been price matching her books there since 2013.
She said students would show the Florida Bookstore the lower prices they found online, and the store would beat the online price by 10 percent. Students just needed to show the price to cashiers, who would manually change it.
"It saves you from having to wait and pay shipping fees," the 19-year-old said.
Sussette Rodriguez, a 20-year-old UF journalism junior, leaves the UF bookstore on Aug. 25, 2015.
