Renting May Be Solution to High Cost of College Textbooks

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:51:00 GMT

Hoping to reduce the premium prices college students pay for textbooks, which on average cost students $900 a year, some colleges and universities are opting to let their students rent their books rather than buy them.

For the first time, six schools in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System are allowing students to rent selected textbooks, according to a Minnesota Public Radio report (“College Textbook Rental Coming to Minnesota,” June 20, 2008).

"Each semester I pay anywhere from $300 to $600 on books, so renting them would probably save me quite a bit,” University of Minnesota student Sonya Sturgis said.

The Minnesota schools are following the model of online book rental sites like Chegg.com and Bookrenter.com, which have offered students an alternative to buying their textbooks for years.

The sites claim that book rental programs could save students 75 percent or more on new and used textbooks, which would allow students to use less of their financial aid and student loans for books and free up more of those funds for tuition and other education-related expenses.

Propelled by studies that show the prices of textbooks are rising faster than the rate of inflation, Congress proposed legislation in February that would require publishers to make unbundled and less expensive versions of textbooks available to students and would require publishers to disclose retail prices and a history of textbook revisions from edition to edition when presenting any new materials to faculty.

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New Missouri Law Takes Aim at Rising College Textbook Costs

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:08:00 GMT

Before ordering a textbook or requiring that students shell out money for a new edition, college and university professors in Missouri will now be armed with two important pieces of information: the wholesale price of the book and exactly what changes have been made from one edition to another.

The Textbook Transparency Act, which Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed into law last week, will allow professors to compare book content and choose cheaper textbooks as long as the new textbook material doesn’t provide less educational value, according to an Associated Press article (“Mo. Law Could Lower College Textbook Costs,” June 29, 2008).

The act will also allow students to choose whether or not to buy the supplemental CDs and workbooks that are generally bundled with textbooks — a measure that is designed to cut down on students’ rising education costs.

The average college student spends $900 a year on textbooks and the wholesale price of college textbooks has increased 32.8 percent since 1998, almost double the 18 percent rise in cost for regular books, according to the National Association of College Stores. “I think [the price increase] is completely outrageous,” says Craig Stevenson, a University of Missouri student who lobbied for the textbook bill.

Missouri’s law is modeled after similar legislation passed in California, Washington, and Arizona.

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Renting May Be Solution to High Cost of College Textbooks

New Missouri Law Takes Aim at Rising College Textbook Costs