By Adam Planty
The semester is drawing to a close and I finish my final exam ensuring that every question is properly answered to the best of my ability, placing it in front of the professor as I wish him a happy summer vacation. As some friends and I walk outside the spring weather is doing everything in its power to bolster my already fantastic mood. We joke about classes, girls, and party plans for the evening as we make our way to the bookstore to sell back our almost brand-new textbooks. We wait patiently in line to see what the damage will be, our moods darkening as we move closer to the counter. I’m handed a voucher to use at the candy machine and told that my $325 worth of textbooks will net me $35.
And a gumball. Cue the rage.
Fortunately, I will never again have to face the rage-inducing situation of attempting to sell books back to the Youngstown State bookstore. I graduate in two months. But the rest of YSU students and college students in general could be facing a drastically different situation if e-readers begin to gain ground across the country. With Apple’s iPad launching this weekend many people, including those in the publishing industry, are hoping e-readers will breathe new life into how people consume books.
Every semester students spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks that they end up either selling back for pennies on the dollar or are forced to keep because the publisher released a new edition. But some progressive colleges have been experimenting with e-readers since last year in an attempt to provide a better and more affordable learning experience to students.
Starting this fall Seton University, a private Catholic school in Pennsylvania, will be giving all incoming first year undergraduate students an iPad. Princeton is pushing to go all e-reader on its campus to avoid paying $5 million for the massive amounts of paper used at its university. While YSU is nowhere near the size of a Princeton, it definitely has enough money to provide students with an e-reader device, for a price. Even if YSU doesn’t provide the devices for students directly the iPad is projected to sell between 6-10 million units by the end of the year, so the chances are high that e-readers will be a common sight on campus regardless of what the university does.
By at least presenting students with an option to use e-books in place of old-fashioned textbooks, YSU can relieve its current student body of the exorbitant prices they pay on a yearly basis while also appearing tech-savvy to potential freshman. If students are wary about purchasing e-books, YSU could “rent” the digital copies for a semester or full year as needed, allowing students to pay much less and not feel they are being forced to retain an unwanted piece of literature. However the transaction process works students can save money, have all of the textbooks needed for an entire semester housed on a single device and be freed from the traveling weight of 25 lbs. worth of textbooks. This is a beautiful thing.
Protecting students form the cost of textbooks should be reason enough to begin changing the ways of college learning. A survey conducted in 2005 points out that the prices of textbooks “jumped 62 percent since 1994, while prices charged for all finished goods increased only 14 percent.” Additionally it says that of the textbooks surveyed “new editions of textbooks cost 45 percent more than used copies of previous editions.” The survey attributes these increased prices to publishers bundling unnecessary materials with textbooks that professors rarely ever use. The Association of American Publishers and National Association of College Stores says that paper, printing and editorial costs account for an average of 32.3 cents of every dollar of the textbook cost. The other 68.7 cents is derived from a mix of marketing, author income, operations, publisher income, and freight.
So as I waltz away with my chump change from another one-sided transaction, I can at least be happy with the fact that it doesn’t have to be this way, but only if the students act with their most vital resource: their dollars. Students should avoid the bookstore and opt to get their books either online through sites like Amazon.com and Half.com or if the texts are available, on an e-reader. Hopefully the choices made by students will YSU push professors to start incorporating textbooks with digital copies into their courses, making the university more e-reader friendly, so we can all enter a new era together.
I was excited to find lawmakers are taking action about the sale and buyback of text books.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vindy.com/news/2010/mar/24/bill-to-cut-cost-of-college-books/
"The legislation would require publishers to offer electronic versions of textbooks as lower-cost alternatives of standard books...Additionally, the bill would implement bulk purchasing among state universities to lower the cost of textbooks...Bookstores also would be required to pay at least 50 percent of textbooks’ original value."
Big ups to State Reps. Matt Lundy and Matt Patten.
Adam,
ReplyDeleteI agree and understand exactly what you are saying. I am one of those students who is forced to pay hundreds of dollars for books each semester, but I don't ever think this would happen anytime soon in the foreseeable future at YSU.
How could we expect our administration to come up with the funds to buy or rent iPads and/or Kindles when we don't even have a usable university website?
The point I'm trying to make is this university is already incredibly behind in technology innovations. The university's administration must first be willing to upgrade its technology. Once this happens, then I think this could work.
You must also remember that, in most cases, bookstores bring in a significant amount of revenue for universities across the nation. It's still a business. Just think how much money would be taken away if this investment was made.
I would also point out this is a great idea for most students. But what about the non-traditional students, i.e. those over 50 who can't even use a home PC, who aren't necessarily aware of the latest technology? For this to work, I think YSU would need to leave the option of buying textbooks open, at least until they learned the technology and/or graduated. Not everyone knows how to operate it yet alone afford it.
I would pose this question to you. Did you get a chance to speak with president David Sweet or President designee Cynthia Anderson about this idea? I would love to hear what they would say about it. If this was included in the blog post, I think it could have helped your argument especially if they told you this was not an option. Then you could have argued that this is being done across the nation and working, and YSU still refuses to make an investment in technology investments.
Our administration should be at least willing to discuss and figure out ways we could come up with the money for this investment.
Overall though, this was a great post with valid arguments, ideas and strong research. Let's only hope the administration will realize soon that this is an issue that needs to be discussed sooner or later - sooner rather than later, I should say.
Good Ridden.
Adam, I think you have good and valid arguments, but it will be left up to YSU to advance itself in terms of technology on campus. With Cynthia Anderson as the new president, hopefully she can make some headway into providing these improvements for future classes.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad to know that e-readers and kindles may never be available during our college tenures, but hopefully they'll be available for our kids.
Your ideas and suggestions are welcome to a campus that is stuck in the past, and needs to catch up in order to attract new students each year.
Well done,
-Tyler