EdAssist Forms Partnership with MBS Direct to Bring Discounted Textbooks to Clients

MBS Direct, a leading discount text book provider, has formed a partnership with EdAssist to provide an online bookstore for discounted textbooks. This new EdAssist bookstore will be available to employees directly through the MyEdAssist site.

"We're excited by this relationship, not only because our clients and their employees will have access to discounted textbooks directly through the MyEdAssist software platform, but because MBS Direct will be supporting a 'Buy Back' program for textbooks that could have a solid impact on reducing the overall costs of textbooks to our employees and clients," states Jeff Creighton, CEO of EdAssist. "We are seeing 8-9% of our clients' tuition assistance dollars going to textbooks, so this is a significant initiative for us."

One of the major breakthroughs in this deal is the buy-back program, which will allow employees to sell back their books at roughly half the value of the initial purchase price. For those companies that utilize the EdAssist disbursement card solution to purchase textbooks, any books sold back through the EdAssist 'Buy Back' program will be credited back to the original disbursement card.

Initially, EdAssist will roll out the textbook purchasing solution as a direct link through MyEdAssist.com. The 'Buy Back' program is due to roll out in Q1 of 2009.