Students Get a Break By Renting, Rather Than Buying, Textbooks
Posted on: Sunday, 24 February 2008, 06:00 CST
By The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Feb. 24--With the cost of college textbooks soaring, Teri Tobin's job is to offer students some relief.
Not only does she deliver significant savings, it's practically a slam-dunk guarantee.
As the textbook services manager at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Tobin oversees a system that is rare on college campuses today. The approximately 6,500 students at this school rent rather than buy most of their books.
"Most of the students, and I know the parents especially, really appreciate the service," Tobin said in a bit of an understatement. "It's a huge recruiting tool."
Indeed, the typical college student spends about $900 a year on textbooks, according to federal statistics, and price increases have been outstripping inflation. But fees typically are half that much or lower at Northwest Missouri and a few dozen other schools around the country that rent books.
Northwest Missouri charges a "usage fee" of $5 per credit hour, meaning a student taking 15 credit hours of classes would be charged a flat $75 book rental fee at the beginning of the semester. After final exams, students simply return the books.
To underscore the financial impact, Tobin offered the example of a Northwest Missouri senior accounting major taking 15 credit hours. Buying the required textbooks would cost nearly $575, based on Tobin's numbers. But by renting, the cost drops to about $75.
With a few exceptions in science and other fast-changing fields, Northwest Missouri teachers are required to use the same textbook for three years. Supplemental readings are not covered in the rental pool.
The price of college textbooks has become a hot-button issue in recent years, spreading from campuses to Congress. The House of Representatives in early February passed an extension of the Higher Education Act, which includes measures aimed at pressuring publishers to make textbook prices more affordable.
Among other things, the House legislation would require publishers to tell professors whether a textbook's new edition is substantially different from the previous version. The bill also requires schools to notify students in advance, if possible, which textbooks are to be used in each course, giving them additional time to search for the cheapest alternative. The House bill now must be weighed in committee hearings with Senate legislation, which does not address textbooks.
Given the current textbook system on campuses today, renting is "the best short-term" alternative to lowering costs for students, said Nicole Allen, campaign director for Make Textbooks Affordable.
The advocacy group ( www.maketextbooksaffordable.org) supports the House legislative reform, as well as other creative approaches to holding down textbook costs, such as campus book swaps, and buying online. Longer-term, Allen said, the solution may be for schools to provide free textbooks and other course materials on the Internet.
Allen said one of the biggest drawbacks to rental programs is the huge upfront cost schools face to build an inventory of textbooks. Rental programs also require faculty buy-in.
Campuses, however, aren't the only rental outlet. Several Internet retailers also specialize in this service, providing flexible terms, no monthly fees, the latest editions, quick shipping and free returns.
At the end of the course, students simply drop the book in the mail using a prepaid postage label. It's also acceptable to write in the books just a bit, but compulsive highlighters could be charged a damage fee.
One of the largest online rental services is Chegg.com. By going to www.chegg.com, students can rent books for either a quarter or a semester for about 40 percent of the list price of a new book.
Chegg maintains an inventory of 2 million textbooks, and, here's what's really cool, Chegg will plant a tree for each book students rent.
BookRenter.com ( www.bookrenter.com) offers more than 1 million books and pledges savings of 50 percent to 75 percent. Rental periods range from 30 to 125 days.
Count Alicia Givens as a satisfied BookRenter customer. Givens, a criminal justice and sociology major at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, rented four new textbooks for the current semester for $128.
"If I had bought them from (the school), those books would have been exactly $433.25," she said.
Givens has been spreading the word about the benefits of BookRenter. "Maybe one day, sites like this will make such an impact that schools will be forced to lower prices in their bookstores," she said. "We're only trying to get an education."
------
Hitting the books Online retailer AbeBooks surveyed more than 10,000 college students about textbook issues. Among the highlights of the survey released last year:
--45 percent were not interested in digital textbooks on the Internet.
--30 percent would share their textbooks.
--73.8 percent buy mostly used textbooks, but only 28 percent plan to sell their books once coursework is completed.
--63 percent were in favor of textbook price-capping legislation on the federal or state level.
To reach Steve Rosen, call 816-234-4879 or send e-mail to srosen@kcstar.com.
-----
To see more of The Kansas City Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.kansascity.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds