The Education Blog

Ok, unfortunately the summer is coming to an end, now it’s time to think of buying textbooks for upcoming classes. Students who’ll continue studying this fall will indeed struggle a bit with the high costs of textbooks demanded in college curricula.

SmartMoney reports that according to General Accounting Office statistics in 2005, on average students spend about $900 for textbooks in a semester. These prices have certainly increased during the years.

Students can pay $200 or more for a single science book. College-customized texts (where schools receive a portion of the book’s sales from the publisher) only exacerbate the problem by limiting students’ ability to sell used copies, says Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org, a consumer advocate.

The problem is so serious that Congress intends to take measures to solve it. Recently they put forth a Higher Education Opportunity Act which will make textbooks costs more manageable. It will provide students advance information on textbook pricing to help them plan their expenses better. It is also required that publishers provide pricing information on “unbundled” text. This means that students will have the possibility to choose individual textbooks they need, without having to buy a whole package.

Meanwhile, even with all these reforms underway, there is no one solid solution to affording all the textbooks you need. You have to take a few different measures to accomplish this task. That’s why SmartMoney proposes alternative ways to have school necessary text without spending too much money. The first one is to browse into electronic textbooks. Edgar Dworsky says that by using electronic texts, students can economize about the half of their expenses. “Ditch the heavy hardcover for an electronic book, and save as much as 50%”, says Dworsky.

In May, six of the biggest textbook publishers created the website CourseSmart.com. This is a real library, which sells subscriptions to digital copies of textbooks and other course materials. According to their prices, a 180-day subscription to “Earth Science”, for example, costs $56.67 (half the price of the printed version). By the way, they offer services not only for students, but for instructors as well.

Students can also check with individual publishers to see if they have their own e-book sites. Another alternative is renting textbooks for a set period of time, usually for a semester, by visiting websites which offer textbook rental services like chegg.com, BookRenter.com, and also CampusBookRentals.com.

Anyway, don’t get frustrated by textbook pricing, if you spend a little effort and look into alternative means, you will always find a way to minimize your expenses and obtain up-to-date class material. Hopefully this post provided you with some good suggestions and a starting point, the rest is up to you.

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