Student Loan Blog : textbooks

Nebraska State Colleges Extend Free Tuition Offer to Freshmen

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:31:00 GMT

Beginning this fall, incoming first-year students attending any of Nebraska’s three state colleges — Wayne State College, Peru State College, or Chadron State College — may see their dreams of a college education come true with a little help from the state, the Omaha World-Herald reports (“3 Colleges to Waive Tuition for Some Freshmen,” March 8, 2009).

Nearly one-third of all students in the Nebraska State College System receive federal Pell Grant funding, but only Pell-eligible first-year students will have their first year of tuition covered under the new Nebraska State College System Advantage Program. The state college system will pick up the tab for these students’ tuition expenses where their Pell Grant funding leaves off.

“With the recent economic downturn, access to college has become more challenging and this program will assist first-time freshmen in their pursuit of earning a degree,” said Bill Roskens, NSCS board chairman (“Nebraska State Colleges Offer Free Freshman Tuition,” KCUA-TV, March 3, 2009).

Students must meet five criteria to qualify for the NSCS Advantage Program:

They must be a Nebraska resident
They must be a recipient of a federal Pell Grant
They must be a first-time first-year student attending a NSCS school during the 2009–10 school year
They may not be a transfer student
They must be enrolled in at least 12 on-campus credit hours

Students can continue to receive this tuition assistance throughout their college career as long as they remain eligible to receive federal Pell Grant awards and as long as they continue to enroll in at least 12 credit hours.

“We are attempting to remove the financial barriers many [of our students] face,” said NSCS Chancellor Stan Carpenter, by only requiring students to pay for textbooks, supplies, and room and board.

College officials believe the Nebraska initiative also has the potential to increase enrollment and encourage more students to remain in the state.

Lois Brunnert, a first-generation college student who relies on financial aid to attend Wayne State, agrees.

“It’s going to allow [students] to have more time to save up money,” Brunnert said. “And it’s going to probably help students continue with their financial aid.”

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Kentucky Student Loan Provider Is Out of Money

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:08:00 GMT

The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority, the state agency that provides college loans to students attending colleges and universities in Kentucky, will “effectively run out of money” Friday while it waits to receive a $50 million loan from the federal government on August 21, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader (“Student Loan Agency to Run Out of Money,” Aug. 13, 2008).

The one-week funding shortage may temporarily inconvenience KHEAA’s student loan borrowers, some of whom will not likely receive their student loans before classes begin as early as August 18 at some schools.

KHEAA, also known as The Student Loan People, has been in communication with the financial aid offices of affected universities, asking them to be patient until the $50 million “bridge loan” from the government arrives. With the loan, the KHEAA will issue $35 million in financial aid to 16,000 students, says James Ackinson, KHEAA’s executive vice president.

“The issue will not delay or prevent any of our students from beginning classes,” says Shelley Park, director of financial aid at Eastern Kentucky University, which begins classes August 25. Students who rely on their student loans to buy textbooks will get school-issued vouchers to cover the cost until they receive their KHEAA-issued student loans and can repay the school.

By Friday, when the KHEAA will temporarily run out of money, the state loan agency will have issued $40 million in loans to 18,000 students since July 1.

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College-Bookstore Bill Could Lower Textbook Costs for Students

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:12:00 GMT

College students may soon be getting some relief when it comes to the $900 they spend on textbooks annually, although these new savings may be too minimal to notice.

A new bill before Congress being supported by college bookstores, HR 5546, would allow bookstores to negotiate the fees they have to pay to banks when students purchase books using credit cards, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“College Bookstores Back Bill That Could Lower Their Credit-Card Fees,” July 16, 2008).

These fees, which average 1.75 percent of the total textbook purchase, are passed on to students in the form of higher prices for college books and may be partly responsible for this trend of escalating textbook costs.

Since 2003, the nation’s college bookstores have paid about $85 million in fees for students who purchased textbooks using credit cards, the National Association of College Stores estimates.

If the new bill becomes law, college bookstores would not only be able to negotiate credit card fees with banks, presumably lowering the fees, but they would also be able to pass their savings on to students in the form of lower textbook costs.

Critics say that the bill may harm smaller banks and credit unions, and they point out that there is nothing in the measure that indicates bookstores’ savings from the reduced fees will be passed along to consumers or students.

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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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Publishing Company to Offer Free Online Textbooks

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:27:00 GMT

To help reduce the rising cost of textbooks, which are approaching $1,000 a year for the average college student, digital-textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge will begin offering free online textbooks starting next year.

The publishing company is signing authors it believes are the best in their fields, Flat World Knowledge co-founder Eric Frank told The Chronicle of Higher Education, (“An Online Company Tries an Unexpected Publishing Model: Free Textbooks,” April 24, 2008).

“We want to show professors that they’re not deciding between price and quality,” Frank said.

The online textbooks will include images, audio, and video features, and will be structured as “social learning” sites, meaning students can chat and share notes online while reading and instructors will be allowed to edit the author’s words without permission.

While its electronic textbooks will be free, Flat World Knowledge hopes to make money from the sales of supplemental materials like study guides or print-on-demand hard copies. The company also plans to take a cut of the sales of user-created study materials sold through its website.

But the company will have to find a market. Digital textbook sales currently represent only a small fraction of traditional publishers’ revenue.

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Congress Joins States and Colleges in Efforts to Reduce Soaring Textbook Costs

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:09:00 GMT

With the average college student now shelling out between $900 and $1,000 each year for textbooks and supplies, according to the College Board’s latest Trends in College Pricing report, schools, states, and now Congress are getting involved in the crusade to control the spiraling costs of college textbooks.

Propelled by studies that show the prices of textbooks are rising faster than the rate of inflation, the House of Representatives included provisions in the recently approved College Opportunity and Affordability Act that are specifically targeted at making textbook costs more manageable, reports Elia Powers of Inside Higher Ed (“Different Tacks on Textbook Choice,” Feb. 19, 2008).

The House bill (H.R. 4137), which passed the House on February 7 and renews the Higher Education Act, would have colleges provide advance information in their course schedules about required books to give students time to plan for expenses and comparison-shop for the most cost-effective options.

Also approved by the House was an amendment (H.AMDT.951) proposed by Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio that would create a pilot competitive grant program to assist a select number of colleges in setting up textbook rental programs.

States Enacting Their Own Textbook Legislation

H.R. 4137 would also require textbook publishers to provide more information about pricing and changes from previous editions, which follows bills already passed by some state legislatures, writes Powers.

Last April, for example, Washington state House Bill 2300 was signed into law, requiring textbook publishers to disclose retail prices and a history of revisions from edition to edition when presenting any materials to faculty.

In June, Oregon passed its similar Senate Bill 365 into law. In addition to charging publishers with providing retail prices and a list of all previous versions of a text to potential adopters, the Oregon measure requires publishers of textbook “bundles” (textbooks packaged with an accompanying CD-ROM or study guide, for instance) to make each component of the bundle available to students separately and to disclose the retail price of each piece.

In California, Assembly Bill 1548, known as the College Textbook Transparency Act, likewise calls for publishers to provide a list of revisions made to new editions, as well as for college bookstores to release the wholesale prices of textbooks. The California bill was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October and goes into effect in 2010.

Changes at the College Level

In response to the increasingly vocal concerns of students, families, and legislators, not all schools are waiting on Congress or state officials to adopt changes to textbook pricing and marketing practices. Some schools, writes Powers, have already instituted book rental, buyback, or other programs in a move to extend textbook affordability.

At Rio Salado College in Arizona, for example, a partnership with Pearson Custom Publishing allows professors to “build” custom textbooks, drawing material from multiple sources. Administrators believe this program could save students up to 50 percent on reading materials.

The University of Virginia, in addition to expanding its textbook rental and guaranteed buyback programs, is increasing its selection of e-books, which can save students as much as 30 percent over print versions of new editions. And a growing number of U.Va. professors are choosing to purchase older editions of books in cases where the new material isn’t a necessity, a move the university says cuts an average of 75 percent off new book prices.

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