Ralph Villecca can think of just one way to describe the price of textbooks — ridiculous.
Villecca, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, echoes the sentiments of many University students struggling to cope with textbook prices.
Prices have been rising faster than inflation for the past couple of decades, said Nicole Allen, a Student Public Interest Research Group textbook advocate.
“Prices have just gotten out of control,” Allen said. “You will see a typical calculus textbook cost over $200, and that’s just ridiculous.”
The average student pays a mean of $900 a year on textbooks, which in some cases can be a significant percentage of a student’s total college cost, adversely affecting students especially in these tough economic times, she said.
“High ancillary costs can put students in a very difficult position whether they take on additional loan debt, credit card debt or delay their education so they can take on additional hours at work or even drop out of school because of the cost,” Allen said.
The blame for high textbook prices goes to the publishing industries, which engage in a number of different tactics that needlessly drive up the cost of textbooks, she said.
These tactics include bundling in CDs, workbooks and pass codes that expire and drive up the cost, making them hard to sell back, she said.
Publishers also issue new editions of textbooks regardless of the changes in content, just to wipe out the used book market of older editions, Allen said.
“In a lot of cases the newer editions are just a rewording. Especially in psychology and sciences and math and history, unless there has been a serious breakthrough, the new textbooks have just been rearranged slightly, the numbers may have just been switched in math equations and the publishers are just looking to make a dollar,” said Lindsey Swoap, a Rutgers NJPIRG’s textbook affordability campaign intern. “There is no reason to constantly produce these same editions over and over, especially if it is just going to be the same material over and over again.”
The source of the problem of high textbooks is a disconnection between students, the consumers, and publishers, the producers, Allen said.
“Professors select which books students buy so students have to buy what they are assigned. That gives publishers free reign to charge whatever they want because students have to buy them,” she said. “We can fix it a little bit by ensuring professors know the price of textbooks when they select their books, because they are the only ones who know what’s best for the class.”
Recently-passed federal legislation will help to fix this problem by requiring publishers to release textbook prices to professors, enabling professors to choose the least expensive book that is still the best for the class, Allen said.
Though students don’t have power as consumers in the market, she said students have some resources at their fingertips to find better deals on books.
Instead of purchasing from the bookstore, Allen said Web sites like Amazon.com and half.com could have good deals for students searching for textbooks.
Campusbooks.com, a free, online price comparison engine that aggregates prices from over 30 online textbook Web sites and then filters that information to give students a clear picture of where they can find new or used textbooks, said Jeff Cohen, vice-president of the company.
Online textbooks rentals are also growing in popularity on Web site like chegg.com, Allen said.
“Students can go there and rent their textbooks for the semester and get a pretty good deal on them,” Allen said. “It works like Netflix, where you get it and then you drop it in the mail when you are done, which is pretty cool.”
Book swaps are also a great way for students to save money on textbooks, said Swoap, who is trying to plan one for the University next year.
During a book swap, students can switch their old books for another book they need free or at a low cost, Swoap said.
All of these cost-saving methods come as great news to the University students, including Rutgers College junior Mike Atzbi, who pays almost $600 for textbooks each semester.
“[For] sciences classes, books are about $150 a pop,” Atzbi said. “[And] when you sell them back you are not really getting half as much back from it, from the bookstores at least.”
School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Keith Inglis said a book he purchased last year cost over $100 dollars and was replaced this year by an updated version of the book, so the bookstore would only give him $1 to buy back the book.
But University professors feel the pain as well.
History Department Professor Temma Kaplan said in an e-mail that one of the greatest constraints in teaching these days is the preposterously high price of textbooks, which often force him to use texts other than the ones he would most want to teach.
“The problem has become so dire that I recently removed an entire book I planned to use in my course because I could not justify asking my hardworking students to pay such a high cost,” said Kaplan, who even paid for the books of one financially challenged student a few semesters ago. “Apart from the absence of sufficient classrooms of sufficient size, the cost of textbooks is the greatest challenge to teaching and studying.”
Chemistry Department Professor Donald Siegel said he negotiates with publishers to help get deals on textbook packages that cost about $150, which will be good for both Chemistry I and Chemistry II — cheaper than getting the book used or in separate components.
“I can remember being shocked when I had to pay $100 for all my books one semester,” Siegel said in an e-mail correspondence. “I wish they were cheaper.”
Web sites assist with soaring textbook costs
Chris Zawistowski / Staff Writer
Published: Friday, February 6, 2009
Updated: Friday, February 6, 2009
2 comments
Anthony
Here is another site that rents textbooks, Skoobit.com...you can check them out as well
Paul
I almost dropped out of school because of textbook prices.
