National System Welcomes DiscountsThe cost of attending college is rapidly rising, and with it are the escalating costs of textbooks. The College Board has predicted that the average student at a four-year public university will spend $1,137 this year on textbooks alone. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance proposed the creation of a national digital marketplace that would reduce costs by uploading textbooks online. This idea is a necessary step towards affordability, as any reduction in textbook costs will provide welcome relief to already financially burdened students. With its ease of access and promises of slashed prices, a national textbook database will discourage students from skimping on their required texts. The online system would allow students to do all the same things that can be done in a printed textbook, like highlighting passages — with the added plus that it would be much easier to search for key terms. Professors would also be able to create custom texts online, so students would not have to spend copious amounts of money on purchasing custom course readers. Pilot programs have yielded promising results. The Cal State system began testing out a service called the “Digital Marketplace” on several of its campuses in 2009. The program showed that 73 percent of students participated in the program, at a 65 percent cost reduction. This groundbreaking innovation could mark the first step towards providing students with the materials they need to succeed in their classes, at prices they can afford.-Chelsey DavisStaff WriterUsed Texts Need to be Fully Utilized
The Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance recommended creating a national digital textbook database as a way to lower the cost of textbooks for students. However, pursuing a special national system is unnecessary because smaller entities are already developing their own systems, which can successfully reduce textbook prices. Sites like PostYourBook.com allow students to buy or trade used books with other students. The site was recently started at Santa Monica College and has spread across the UC system, as students are able to sell their books to each other with no middle man, enabling discounted prices for buyers and more profit than a university bookstore would pay the seller. Digital books show promise for reducing textbook costs. According to an IPRO report, digital textbooks can cut textbook costs by 30-50 percent. California State University launched a pilot digital textbook program on several of their campuses in 2009. Under this program, students were able to rent digital textbooks for $60, versus the average $173 they would pay for paper textbooks. New technology such as the Kindle and iPad make a future in digital books even more feasible, and are already being utilized in some schools for education. It is not in the education system’s best interest to waste money and time pursuing a national database that may not even be efficient, when there are already successful cost-cutting methods in existence, and new technologies providing hope for further cost reduction.-Chris RoteliukStaff Writer