With the cost of some new textbooks crossing $200, the big campus booksellers are jumping into the rental business, which was dominated by online companies like Chegg.com. After a 25-store test this spring, Barnes & Noble College Booksellers says that more than half of its 640 stores will begin renting some textbooks this fall, while Follett Higher Education Group is launching rentals at about 700 of its more than 800 campus stores.
Though selection will be limited to newer and more expensive books, rental prices should be less than half the price of a new book. Students have to open an account backed by a credit card and they may be charged the full price if the book isn't returned on time.
The price differences can be dramatic. At Georgetown University's bookstore, an introductory psychology book costs $134.25 new, $100.75 used and $60.41 to rent for a semester. A digital version sells for $31.50.
18 August 2010
The cost of college textbooks
The Wall Street Journal has an article this week re the financial aspects of going to college, which included the following observations:
Isn't greed just grand?
ReplyDeletePrinting is expensive and some texts have very small print runs, this drives up the printing cost even more.
ReplyDeletethrow in cost of art if there are any illustrations and professionally drawn graphics and the cost goes up more.
I "rented" some of my text books way back when I was in college. I bought them and resold them to the university book store.
Over $200.00 is still a surprise.
Textbooks are low print run, as already pointed out, and also require many, many person hours to put together: designers, art studios, photo researchers, permissions experts, project managers, copy editors, pagers, proofreaders, acquisition editors, developmental editors, academic editors, production editors, and more. That's for one book. We don't get paid a lot, but we do insist on getting paid something for some very stressful and deadline-heavy work.
ReplyDelete"We don't get paid a lot..."
ReplyDeleteI'll second that - I've written textbook chapters. And I'll guarantee that paying authors and contributors is not what drives up the prices of the books.