Textbook-rental programs prove no cure for rising costs

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Textbook-rental programs at many of the nation’s colleges — touted as money-savers for students — are limited by the number of available titles, publishers who release frequent new editions and professors who believe their right to choose course materials is essential to academic freedom.

About half the nation’s major college and university bookstores offered textbook rentals this fall, according to the National Association of College Stores, hoping to cut the $600-$900 students spend buying books each year.

But schools and publishing experts say the programs are expensive to start up and difficult to operate. In addition, there are complaints that rental prices still are too high, even though they can be as much as half the cost of a new book.

Federal lawmakers, increasingly concerned that textbook costs create a barrier to affordable higher education, have endorsed a pilot program for rentals. Twelve schools were awarded up to $1 million each this fall under a congressionally mandated U.S. Department of Education program this fall to create rental programs, several of them targeting lower-income or first-generation immigrant college freshmen.

In addition, a federal law went into effect earlier this year requiring publishers to give professors the price of textbooks and to list revisions to new editions; it also asks schools to release book lists early so that students can shop for best prices before classes begin.

Publishers face no consequences if they don’t follow the rules, however.

In the end, students will decide how they get their textbooks — and they have an ever-expanding galaxy of choices.

They can buy them new, shrink-wrapped at campus stores. They can search online for discounted used copies at numerous websites such as Amazon.com or Bigwords.com. They can download them to their computers or rent them — from their campus bookstore, from online websites and even the publishers themselves.

Two of the largest bookstore operators, Barnes & Noble and Follett Higher Education Group, have spent millions to build their own Internet rental portals in the face of competition from websites, stocking up on inventory and developing tracking software.

Yet for all of the innovation from digital media and the Internet, prices are still set by publishers, who market directly to faculty. Faculty, in turn, decide titles for study, often without considering cover prices.

That means students are still paying hundreds of dollars each semester.

“It’s ridiculous. I think we pay so much for tuition already, books should be at least affordable,” said Janelle Grant, 26, an East Orange, N.J., native and sophomore at the University of Richmond in Virginia. She said she shopped around this semester before deciding to buy and rent online, spending about $300. “I spent a lot of my summer searching for cheaper books.”