Students arriving back on campus for spring semester will be met with two more newspapers provided free of charge.

MSU President M. Peter McPherson announced Wednesday that the MSU Readership Program, which has provided copies of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times since 1998, will now issue the Lansing State Journal and USA Today to students.

JT Forbes, a university spokesman, said there will be about 400 copies of the Lansing State Journal and 250 copies of USA Today available in residence halls and academic buildings on a daily basis.

“We want to expand the reading options for students,” he said.

Forbes said while the two papers will be given a one semester trial period, the MSU Readership Program plans to continue supplying students with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

“We are pleased with (the newspapers’) usage in classrooms,” he said. “They are seen as an investment.”

Michael Kane, president and publisher of the Lansing State Journal, said this plan to expose students to more news sources was a year in the making.

“We want to be a stepping stone for national and international news as well as local and state news,” he said.

In return for providing newspapers to the university, Kane says getting the paper in the hands of the students will benefit his paper.

Pre-vet freshman Amy Goodmen said she relies on television to receive news but tends to read The New York Times.

“I had to read The New York Times for a class, and I got interested in it,” she said. “I would read it if it were there.”