Every student has to deal with skyrocketing textbook costs. (Photo by Lilach Assayag)
As if the financial strains of tuition weren’t enough, college students also find themselves struggling with textbook prices.
“The books are ridiculously overpriced,” said Rob Niweg, a 21-year-old business student at DCCC. Every semester, he said spends about $250 to $300 for textbooks.
There are a number of resources to aid students – as well as teachers who are willing to help and accommodate them – with textbook costs.
"I got a book for $65 on eBay that was $100 at the bookstore,” said Mike Connor, an 18-year-old graphic design student at DCCC.
Several other notable resources are amazon.com and half.com.
One such example of potential savings is “Statistical Techniques for Business and Economics: 13th Edition.” At the bookstore it costs $97.50 used; $130.25 new, but at amazon.com, new copies are priced as low as $51.99.
Students aren’t concerned only with price of books, but also the mileage they get out of them. “I feel we should use the books more if we’re paying X amount of dollars,” said Phil Kassotis, a 21-year-old liberal arts student at DCCC.
This sentiment is also held by a number of teachers as well.
“Textbooks are outrageously expensive, and I feel bad requiring student to pay as much as $85 for a book from which I’ll only use a handful of chapters,” said Eartha Holley, an assistant professor of English.
Holley doesn’t require his English Composition I students to have a textbook. Instead he relies on his students reading each other’s papers as well as suggested examples found in newspapers, magazines, and online.
His feeling is that publishers can charge whatever they want for textbooks and usually do so once the books have been ordered by professors.
But Holley is not alone in this line of thought.
Janice Baldwin-Hench, also an English professor at DCCC, made a textbook optional for her English Composition II students when she found that a large number of them felt that the cost of books wasn’t worth the benefit.
Baldwin-Hench subscribes to a method similar to Professor Holley’s, but hers involves more development of her own personal class materials. She also acknowledges that some students are more comfortable using a text which is why she makes that an option as well.
However there are teachers that have chosen not to use textbooks for entirely different reasons.
Professor Lorraine Ranalli doesn’t use one for her Public Speaking class because she places greater emphasis on “practical application.”
She acknowledged that she has used a textbook and values the content, but felt that it became too time consuming to assign and review readings, as well as test students on the material.
“I do not think it would be prudent to forgo textbook use in most subjects,” Ranalli said. “I happen to teach a subject that relies heavily on practical application.”
An author and publisher herself, Ranalli understands how textbooks are priced.
Research, editing, and illustrations contribute to the costs. Legal and copyright fees as well as the printing and marketing of the book are also taken into account.
For this reason she suggested that to help students with textbook prices, teachers should allow them to use dated versions. “Publishers reissue textbooks on a regular basis, often making minimal changes to the text or graphics so they can remarket their product,” Ranalli said.
One option that many students may not know about is the book fund right here at DCCC.
Dianne Shames, a reading professor at DCCC, started the fund three years ago. The money for the book fund comes mostly from a raffle of items donated by businesses, both on and off campus.
However there is a strict criterion for determining who receives money from the fund.
“The first year we were swamped with student applications,” Shames said. “We ran out of money very quickly.”
Among the things considered are a students financial means as well as whether or not they have used the fund before. Favor is usually given to students requesting it for the first time, and students are limited in how many textbooks they can receive.
All of this is evaluated by DCCC student enrollment services specialists.
While strides have been made to help students with textbook costs, it is still a prevalent problem.
Baldwin-Hench had only one word to describe them: “unacceptable.”
