Used books

Why are textbooks required for school, when they are rarely, if ever used in some classes?

The average student spends about $450 per full-time semester on textbooks alone, some of which are seldom used. 

“At least 25 percent of my books I could have done without,” said Brett Bowie, a current college student.

The resale price of books is much lower than the new price, but students can buy used books from the previous year instead of buying them new.

One student, Brianna Long thinks she might be better off in the classes that don’t require textbooks.

“I feel like the teachers who gave the option of buying the book took more responsibility in the classroom instead of assigning book work,” Long said. ”I learned much more.”

Still some classes need textbooks for homework such as an algebra or chemistry class.

“I bought all of my books for college,” college graduate Travis Williams said, but increasingly classes are adding online homework and quizzes, lessening the usefulness of a standard textbook.

Used books can be bought and sold back at online websites like buyusedtextbooks.com.  Often these sites are much cheaper than buying at a college bookstore, for example a retail price tag of over $75 for the book Inside Reporting as compared to the online price of just over $45  at bestpricebooks.com and $11.49 at half.com  

Unfortunately some books will not be bought back because they quickly become outdated. Alternatively, students can rent a book for the semester at bookrenter.com for a reduced price. Personal Finance by Kapoor, Dlabay, and Hughes rents at only about 43 percent of its retail value on book renter.com.  

Students like Long believe that college books could be required less often in favor of more online work, and in-class notes and website handouts like those found on Blackboard class sites.

Recently Congress passed “The Higher Education Reauthorization and College Opportunity Act of 2008” bill which includes new rules requiring textbook publishers to include information about textbook pricing, as well as information on what revisions were done in new editions of textbooks.  Also the bill requires that courses list what textbooks and supplies will be needed before students sign up for a given class, all in an effort to help control the increasing costs, and numerous new editions of textbooks.

Should a student by the books at all for his or her classes? The solution according to cityofcollegedreams.org may be for new students to talk to students who took the class the previous semester and find out if the book will be needed or not, saving the new student money.