Expensive college textbooks
By Kendra Nordin | 08.18.08
Every year there seems to be a bit of news buzz in the first weeks of August about how expensive college textbooks have become. To help ease the burden, Congress has enacted new legislation mandating that institutions of higher learning be more transparent about college costs.
One of the reasons behind the higher costs of textbooks is something called “bundling.” Publishers often package textbooks with additional supplements, such as CD study guides – useful, but not always necessary. The new Higher Education Act is asking publishers to provide clearer pricing information to bookstore buyers and educators, in addition to offering unbundled textbooks.
College textbooks are big business, even though publishers insist that profit margins are small. The University of Arkansas is predicting that its students will collectively spend more than $2.5 million this month alone on textbooks.
Robert Ronstadt, a former vice-president at Boston University, has self-published a book and maintains a website on how to help keep college costs down. (It’s hard not to point out the irony of buying Ronstadt’s book for ideas on saving money, but his motives are obviously for the greater good.)
The California state auditor has also released a 102-page report suggesting ways educators can help minimize costs for students. You can read the full report here.
MSNBC.com features a good tip list for student textbook shoppers: Compare prices, rent or share books instead, and get to know online resources like Amazon’s Kindle. Then there’s that interesting place called the library, where you can borrow books – free.
When I was in college we didn’t have to worry about bells and whistles with our textbooks. Few students even had their own computers (this is not as long ago as that sounds, I promise). I still have a number of my college books, complete with earnest notes in the margins. Occasionally I dust off one of these books and give it a good thumb-through. I’m always surprised at how quickly the ideas absorbed in that college classroom come flooding back. I’d be disappointed if our current generation of college students missed out on being able to shelve memories of their own.
Marjorie Kehe will return to Chapter & Verse tomorrow.
Comments
2. Matthew | www.loving-awareness.org | 08.18.08
One thing you didn’t mention is that many times the professor will get compensation for the particular textbook. This means that they may be influenced to select something based on their own benefit rather than the student’s benefit.
For instance, there is no need to change first year calculus textbooks regularly. The curriculum has been the same for many, many years. Keeping the same textbook means students can buy it used, recycle it, find it more easily, etc. But there’s rarely any recompense for the prof from an old textbook.
Putting students first in motivation would be a good step.
3. Ted | 08.18.08
I think renting textbooks is the most cost effective solution at the moment (until digital textbooks become more available), as it requires less money upfront (See Chegg.com).
@Evan
I agree with you on BigWords.com. They were named the Best Textbook Comparison site on this independent study that found the
4. Al | 08.19.08
As somebody who’s taught many classes at the university level, I haven’t ever seen professors being compensated for selecting books. While many of us are concerned about book prices, we can’t control them. If a publisher comes out with a new edition every year, that also means that they stop publishing the older edition. We can’t put in an order for an older edition that is no longer published! We can’t ask students to go get out-of-print books. The most we can do is to not select the outrageously priced ones (the publishers don’t try to make that easy - there’s no price printed on the samples they give us). But they inevitably change editions soon enough.
5. Jeannie Samuels | 08.19.08
I always check out uloop.com before ever trying any of the other book stores or book rentals. I am super cheap and I want my books right away + I don’t like that I can’t write in a rental book and they take too long.
Uloop is free for students with a .EDU email address http://uloop.com/?mct=mybooks
I can sell books to students or buy books from fellow students and not pay some rental business or book store a bunch of $.
If I don’t find it on Uloop, then I go to Half.com which is good for prices but sucks because I have to wait longer for the book than I have to on Uloop.
If I can’t find it on Half, then I’ll check out the non-campus bookstore next to my campus. They are generally much cheaper than the campus bookstore.
If all else fails, I’ll go to amazon or the campus bookstore.
Tried renting — too much work + I like to write in my books.”
6. Adrianne | 09.05.08
As a librarian (who disapproves of the practice), I must add that many schools have contracts stating that the library can carry no required textbooks (popular fiction for literature classes and other such works obviously excepted). Their stated reason is that “students are going to buy all their books anyhow, so it’s wasted money and shelf space for us to stock a copy.” Knowing all the kickbacks that go on inside college business transactions, I doubt it. (So glad my alma mater, Harvard, saved me a few thousand dollars by having the opposite policy — always having all required textbooks on in-library reserve!)
8. Nick | 10.23.08
The cost of college textbooks is out of control with an average cost of over $100 for textbooks. I have buying International Edition textbooks that are much cheaper. International Edition books are printed for overseas markets and is the same content as US Edition textbooks but generally are paperback and black and white print.
There are a number of sites but I have been using http://www.wholesalecollegetextbooks.com and when they have the book instock it is way cheaper.
9. Glen | 07.01.09
The cost of textbooks is high but with textbooks being easily available online, and being able to sell directly to other students, textbooks can be surprisingly affordable part of tuition. The key is to buy the books as early as possible from an online site, and then sell the book as soon as possible online. If you are smart about how to purchase textbooks you can save a lot of money!
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1. Evan Perry | 08.18.08
I like BIGWORDS.com for textbooks. The reason they’re the best is that they compare many items at once, and calculate the best combination of stores to buy at, including coupons and shipping. They also let you include or exclude international editions, and they let you choose the ship time and then calculate the lowest price using the right shipping type at every store. Pretty neat! http://www.bigwords.com/