Darrin Davis, Kristopher Prue-Cook
Come September, the start of the fall semester, we will all be facing even more difficult times.
The stressors involved in starting school are numerous: trying to get the classes we need or want, at the times we need or want: finding only one parking spot among thousands so as not to be late to our first class meeting; Finding a seat during that first jam-packed class meeting and fighting all of those who aren’t in the class but who want to add.
Of all of these rituals, it is perhaps the biannual “rush” at the bookstore that holds a special place in the hearts of college students across the country.
Every one of us has griped, moaned and groaned over the cost of textbooks.
In this time of an economic crisis we, as students, need our dollar to go a lot further than ever before. With the price of textbooks that can sometimes make or break a student’s budget, that is an ongoing challenge.
The first thing to consider when shopping for textbooks next semester is to shop around. Although it is convenient, the Bookstore isn’t always the best buy. If you can wait a few days for delivery, you can save a substantial amount of money by shopping at an online retailer such as Amazon.com.
Let’s take a hypothetical example of four classes that satisfy requirements for the California State University General Education Certified Plan (Communication in the English language and Critical Thinking.) The classes are English 101, Speech 101, Astronomy 1 and Political Science 1.
A little comparison-shopping shows that you can save almost $100 on the required texts for these classes. Sellers on the site www.abebooks.com beat every other reseller on every book except on the Political Science bundle, where the bookstore was actually cheaper. (see figure 1.2)
Money-saving ideas for students:
Book buyback
It is a commonly held belief among students that book buyback is a rip off. This isn’t necessarily true. During buyback, there are actually two groups buying books back: your college bookstore and a wholesale book distributor. When your bookstore buys your book back, they buy books that professors have already indicated that they will use again.
If this is the case, the bookstore will buy your book back at 50 percent of the new cost. They will buy the book back even if you bought it elsewhere. For the spring semester, the bookstore bought back about $150,000 worth of textbooks, and Osweiler says they would love to do even more.
For Fall 2009, the bookstore wants to buy about $200,000 worth of our books. If no instructor uses the book in the upcoming semester, the bookstore can’t buy it back, but the wholesaler likely will at a significantly lower price. Afterward the wholesaler will sell the book to other campuses that will be using that book.
Used
A used book is usually priced at 75 percent of what the new book costs. That means a 25 percent discount off the price of a book. If you buy a $100 book used, it will cost you $75. If you are able to sell it back at buyback, you’ll get $50. Equaling only $25 out of pocket for you. It is very easy to find people who sell books online too!
Last year the bookstore introduced a book fair event for professors to orient them to the processes involved in ordering and selling textbooks, and how the instructors’ selections and timeliness of their selections affect students.
The book fair involved bringing representatives of the major publisher to a multi-day event in the campus center so the instructors could talk directly to them about the textbook selection, publishing and purchasing process.
Since holding the first book fair, Greg Osweiler, general manager of the Pierce College Bookstore, said that they have seen definite and noticeable action by professors to help reduce the cost to students. Some of these actions include:
Customization
Having chapters taken out of books that instructors don’t use is one of the best ways to reduce the cost of books. This method, however, means the instructor has to take a proactive role in working with the publisher.
The business department had a book that sold for $110. They adopted a custom book that omitted unnecessary chapters reducing the price of the book to $55. It is a double-edged sword.
Since the textbook for the business department is now customized for Pierce College, you can’t get that book through other sources, like amazon.com.
That is the extreme end of the savings, but you can still realize substantial savings in any customization.
Believe it or not, some publishers have gotten into the act of saving students money by approaching Pierce and offering to customize textbooks for Pierce at a reduced rate.
Pearson Education, one of the big publishers, offered Pierce a deal: buy 400 or more of this certain textbook, and they’ll cut $40 off the price per book.
Pearson recently offered Pierce another deal: if Pierce was to adopt a modified version of some textbooks the math department is already using, they would cut the price of those books by 35 percent.
The books would no longer be bound in the traditional way, but would be sold loose-leaf, and three-hole-punched. They will also include access to an online math lab service run by Pearson.
Alternate formats
Another type of customization involves printing the book in a paperback or soft cover format, or in a style that resembles a magazine. This is particularly useful for classes such as political science or history classes, which tend to have frequent revisions to keep up with current events.
Using their own material
Several Professors elect to create their own course materials in lieu of textbooks, like Professor Fred Obrecht of the English Department.
Professor Obrecht, who teaches English 21 uses a traditional textbook, with two packets he wrote himself. These two packets cost $14 together. Obrecht said that he uses these because he can save the students money.
Obrecht said that he used these packets to replace traditional textbooks a long time ago.
He is very satisfied with student performance compared to using a traditional textbook, and likes the fact that he can add, edit or remove the content very quickly without waiting for the publisher to come out with a new edition.
In the first week of March, the bookstore was in the process of mailing out requisition forms for instructors to select their books for the summer and fall semesters. The earlier instructors turn in their lists the more time the bookstore has to purchase the needed textbooks. This may lead to deals from the publisher for reduced shipping costs and bulk discounts.
Instructors adopting textbooks early is one of the simplest and most effective ways to help reduce the cost of textbooks immediately.
At the time this story went to print, Osweiler indicated that approximately 25 to 30 percent of instructors have submitted their requisition forms for the fall term, which is about average for this point their requisition processing.
One major benefit of professors submitting their requisitions early is the ability of the bookstore to buy used textbooks back from us. For the fall semester, he bookstore wants to buy back between 400 and 500 individual titles from student, for about $200,000. You don’t need to have purchased the book from the bookstore to sell it back to them.
The bookstore made $7.2 million dollars last year, according to Osweiler and is on track to make $7.6 million dollars this year. The bookstore has to buy all of the textbooks we go browsing through. All of which is a lump cost for them.
In order to stock books for next semester, the bookstore has to pony up the money before hand, and potentially take a loss for the textbooks they don’t sell, or have to sell as used instead of new because students return them two days after buying them. The store also has to pay all their employees.
The bookstores in the Los Angeles Community College District are supposed to operate as self-sufficient entities. All of the bookstore employees, from the checkers, to the stockroom people, are paid with the money the bookstore makes.
The LACCD Board of Trustees has set a gross margin (profit) of 27.7 percent for all LACCD Bookstores, so if the bookstore saves any money at all on the cost of a book, they must pass that savings on to us.
A few years ago, the digital textbooks seemed like they were the best new thing. Unfortunately, that excitement has all but died out. The infrastructure simply isn’t in place for publishers to make the transition to publish mainstream textbooks in an all-digital format, according to Osweiler.
Some instructors at Pierce have attempted to move to an all-digital text; sadly, they have abandoned that. For most classes, the number of students who bring their own laptops to class, and the lack of computers in most classrooms make digital textbooks a very difficult proposition.
Another thing that the Pierce Bookstore and other bookstores across the LACCD are looking at is the idea of centralized purchasing and ordering. If a class here at Pierce uses a book that both Valley and Mission Colleges also use, if all the schools order a larger lot of the same book together, that would reduce the cost. A major hindrance to that proposal right now has been the different inventory control systems used at the different colleges.
The price of textbooks has risen at twice the annual rate of inflation over the last 20 years and the cost of textbooks has tripled since 1986, according to a study conducted in 2005 by the Government Accountability Office. Some of the reasons textbook prices have increased so dramatically can be attributed to the inclusion of things like CD-ROMs and other supplemental materials bundled together with textbooks.
The GAO study also found that community college students spend 72 percent of all total costs that includes tuition and other fees, while four-year college students spend 26 percent. Nearly three quarters of the money we spend on our education, goes to textbooks that will most likely collect dust on the back of a bookshelf after we take our final.
The struggle college students endure has even caused our elected leaders to take notice. President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law.
This legislation included the American Opportunity Tax Credit. With this new credit, if you’re enrolled at least half time you can claim almost all of your educational expenses, textbooks, tuition, fees, on your Federal Income tax next year.
If you plan on using this credit, you should keep a record of how much money you’ve spent on these things. The Internal Revenue Service has yet to publish the instructions and details for this credit, but they should have the guidance completed soon.
Given the tough economy we’re all facing, textbook prices may seem like the biggest barricade to finishing school, but by using this information as a starting point, hopefully you can get through next semester with some extra money in your pocket. So don’t close the book on saving money on your textbooks just yet.
