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The price of textbooks has been an issue of concern for colleges and students for several decades. Textbook costs have increased 186 percent since 1986 according to a July 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Meanwhile, some alternatives such as text book rentals have popped up online.
Bernard Voss, a senior psychology student, paid $250.64 at the University Bookstore for two psychology books and hardware required for his classes this semester. For the exact same textbooks and hardware on the popular textbook rental website Chegg.com his cost would have been $125.89, but Voss would have to return the books at the end of the semester. Other websites such as bookrenter.com and campusbookrentals.com offer similar prices for book rentals.
“If there are not competitive prices in town then student will go elsewhere. The local bookstores are convenient, but few students are in a position to turn down the hundreds of dollars they can save online,” said Voss.
Textbooks for college cost students an average of $850 a year, and more than half of students say that this additional cost creates a difficult financial situation for them, according to the National Center for Education Statistics for 2003/2004.
“The way things are set up now students don’t have much of a choice for book prices, it’s just expensive,” said junior Derrick Helphenstine.
One option that many schools and textbook companies are looking into is a textbook rental program. Some schools received grants for pilot textbook rental programs allocated in the 2008 amendment of the Higher Education Act. The amendment provided a pilot grant program in which 10 universities, chosen on a competitive basis, were given grants to provided materials to rent, to hire staff required to run the program, with priority given to undergraduate students, and to build additional storage facilities needed for the program.
There are currently 26 universities that utilize textbook rental programs in the United States, and each program is customized to the needs of each individual university, according to the Used Textbook Association.
There are several more institutions that use what is known as a hybrid rental program and rent only select titles, such as books for entry-level courses. Students have to purchase books for other courses.
Morehead State’s University Bookstore has looked into the textbook rental process already, and even proposed a pilot hybrid rental program to the administration in 2006. The proposal predicted students saving up to 60 percent on textbooks, but priority was given to other programs by a strategic initiative funding committee made up of faculty, staff, administration, and students.
“We are always researching new methods. We agree that textbook prices are high, and we want to stay competitive and have a good price for our students,” said the University Bookstore’s General Manager Cheryl Farmer.
The University Bookstore’s Textbook Manager Julie Ferguson said “We have visited several schools that are using pilot programs, and will be attending a symposium in Missouri hosted by our supplier MBS this October.”
The symposium will consist of three days of classes designed to educate administrators on new bookstore policies, and will provide more comprehensive financial information about the textbook rental process.
Farmer said “I think that if there was participation and support from the students, faculty and administration a hybrid rental system could work at Morehead.”
There is some support for such a system on campus.
Voss said “Most professors I know are in favor of getting students the most effective books and the lowest possible price. They don’t want books to cause more of a financial burden than they have to.”
Spanish professor Sissy Alloway said “Obviously some books must be updated, but many of them could be used for several years.”
Most programs require that faculty use the same textbooks for two to four years, and many professors said this inhibits their ability to choose the course materials that would be most effective for their students from year to year.
According to the National Association of College Stores (NACS), rental fees for the 2005 academic year ranged from $20 to $30 per book offering a significant saving to the student, but the overall start up cost of a rental program deters many institutions from adopting one. A conservative estimate constructed by the NACS for a college with 9,500 students, approximately the enrollment of Morehead State University, is $3 million.
Textbooks have been available to rent online since 2006 through Bookrenter.com, which claims to be the first online textbook rental source, and several other such as Chegg.com which claims a 65 to 85 percent in savings and plants a tree for every book bought, rented, or donated to their site, which has funded over 750 acres of trees.
Some textbook publishers are also adopting the system. Cengage Learning, one of the nation’s largest textbook publishers, announced that it would be launching a new site, CengageBrain.com, to enter the textbook rental market and claims to be the first textbook publisher to rent directly to students. The website, which will launch in December of 2009, will offer e-books and textbook rental with a wide variety of options. Cengage Learning also claims that the books will be rented at 40 to 70 percent of the suggested retail price according to Cengage.com.
Bill Redwine, vice president for auxiliary services, said the bookstore would submit another proposal for a rental textbook program if the opportunity were given.
Psychology student Voss, who had spent over $250 for his psychology, said he would consider using a rental program if available.
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