Textbook options
Ashley Leefeldt
Issue date: 4/17/06 Section: Campus Life
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Until recently, students have been forced to pay outrageous prices for their textbooks and have had no other choice than to purchase them at their campus bookstores. However, the common complaint that "textbooks are too expensive!" may heard less once students discover websites that could help them save money on textbooks.
In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported that college textbook prices have increased more than twice the rate of inflation, at an average of 6 percent per year since 1986.
While students at State Universities are accustomed to keeping their textbooks after their semester is over because the buy-back rate is sometimes over 75 percent less than what they originally paid, students at Woodland and Yuba Community Colleges are more fortunate.
"Universities are pickier about their returns," stated Pedro Medina, a UC Davis student who formerly attended Woodland Community College. "They won't accept a book with dog-eared pages, too many high-lighted chapters, or whatever they deem to be 'water damage,' whereas the student bookstore on Woodland's campus will accept most book returns at the end of the semester, and students are given a more reasonable payback price."
Many instructors at Woodland and Yuba Community Colleges have complained that there is sometimes no need to change the edition of the required text. Yet, every semester a new edition of the Norton Anthology is issued. This problem originates with the book publishers, not the campus bookstore.
One Distributive Education instructor, who was so frustrated with the differences from edition to edition, stated that he would almost rather not use the book at all, or simply stick to the same edition for semesters to come.
Now, students can visit websites that will enable them to share textbooks like they do music and mp3 files.
Forget Napster and iTunes! The new trend on campuses will be trading textbooks over the internet on websites like SwitchTextbooks.com.
In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported that college textbook prices have increased more than twice the rate of inflation, at an average of 6 percent per year since 1986.
While students at State Universities are accustomed to keeping their textbooks after their semester is over because the buy-back rate is sometimes over 75 percent less than what they originally paid, students at Woodland and Yuba Community Colleges are more fortunate.
"Universities are pickier about their returns," stated Pedro Medina, a UC Davis student who formerly attended Woodland Community College. "They won't accept a book with dog-eared pages, too many high-lighted chapters, or whatever they deem to be 'water damage,' whereas the student bookstore on Woodland's campus will accept most book returns at the end of the semester, and students are given a more reasonable payback price."
Many instructors at Woodland and Yuba Community Colleges have complained that there is sometimes no need to change the edition of the required text. Yet, every semester a new edition of the Norton Anthology is issued. This problem originates with the book publishers, not the campus bookstore.
One Distributive Education instructor, who was so frustrated with the differences from edition to edition, stated that he would almost rather not use the book at all, or simply stick to the same edition for semesters to come.
Now, students can visit websites that will enable them to share textbooks like they do music and mp3 files.
Forget Napster and iTunes! The new trend on campuses will be trading textbooks over the internet on websites like SwitchTextbooks.com.
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