Book prices force students to dig deeper into pockets

By Elizabeth Eide
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer

College students spend a month's rent every semester on books, according to a study published by USA Today. The California Student Public Interest Group and the Oregon Student Public Interest Group conducted a survey of the most widely assigned textbooks for fall 2003 at 10 public schools in Oregon and California and found that students spend $900 a year on books.

According to Rochelle McCoy, the book department manager at Long Beach City College and former used book coordinator at Cal State Long Beach, publishers raise their prices once a year. These price increases account for an increase in the cost of paper and shipping increases include the rising cost of gas.

McCoy said professors play a big role in alleviating this problem. Professors can lower the cost of books by getting their book requests in on time and communicating effectively with the bookstore. Professors need to turn in a list of the required texts, manuals, and other materials they require for their courses and how many sections of the class they are teaching to their department secretary by the assigned deadline. Unfortunately, failing to meet the deadline raises the shipping charges.

According to the University Bookstore, to get 300 textbooks to campus when orders are made on time costs $562.42 for shipping. To get the same books in three days costs $1,909.60. To get them in two days costs $2,408 and next day delivery costs $2,968. Late orders can cost six times more than the intended amount.

McCoy said costs can be decreased if teachers, students, and the bookstore are all on the same page. She also said that some classes, like English, require many books, but not all at the same time.

Students will budget by not buying the books until they need them but the bookstore interprets it as left over books that need to be sent back to the publisher.

At the end of a semester if there are left over books not being used for the following year, they will be sent back to the publisher.

McCoy said if teachers submit a late request for the same book the bookstore ends up paying for freight twice on a book they already had in stock.

According to the University Bookstore, this year the deadline for book requests was March 26, 2004 and less than 25 percent of professors had their orders in by that date. The bookstores records show that about 50 percent of professors had them in by early May, which is the same month of the book buyback. This resulted in only 100 out of 4,000 books being enrolled in the guaranteed buyback.

If a professor is going to use the same book for the fall semester and does not submit their book requests, students cannot sell their book back to the bookstore because they do not think it is being used for fall, McCoy said. This means students who finished their courses in the spring keep their books and students taking those courses in the fall have to buy new books. Students are losing money in the spring and in the fall by not getting money back for their books and having to buy new ones.

"We want to buy books from students because there is no transportation charges, we're keeping money in our own students' hands and keeping them happy," McCoy said.