Pricy Textbooks

One of the most dreaded parts of ever semester always seems to be purchasing textbooks. As we get our schedule for the semester worked out the next step is to make that trip down to the UNM bookstore and see what books our professors have decided for us to use for the semester. We cross our fingers in the hopes of a miracle that our professor won’t have a textbook request or that our textbooks won’t exceed a hundred dollars. It is always such a disappointment when we find that a class has several costly books. It’s an even bigger disappointment and stress when books for many different classes add up to hundreds of dollars. Former UNM student Danielle states “I spent close to $800 for textbooks for just one semester it was ridiculous!” Countless UNM students have dealt with the same issue, spending hundreds of dollars for classes they need to take in order to graduate.

My first semester in college I went to buy books for the first time and was shocked when an intro class came with the large request for 12 textbooks, the textbook amount for that one class totaled $350. It was outrageous and I didn’t understand why a class would need 12 books for a 16 week class. I ended up changing to a different section of the course simply because the books were so expensive for the course I had originally signed up for. It is always a guessing game when it comes to textbooks every semester but one thing does remain consistent and it is the fact that textbooks will always be pricy.

The UNM bookstore does have some things in place to help with the large debts many students rack up every semester and that is the use of an account that allows students to charge their books on their lobo card and set up a payment plan in which they can pay in installments rather than hundreds of dollars up front. Danielle says that, “without the being able to pay for my books in payments throughout the semester I wouldn’t have been able to buy any books at all. That account saved me and made my life a lot easier.” I agree 100% with that statement because that myself and many other students would not be able to afford these high priced learning utensils.

The UNM bookstore also sells used textbooks that are often much cheaper than a purchasing a brand new book and they make that possible by creating the option of buying back books from students at the end of each semester. However, as many of us have experienced selling books back to the bookstore has also become a burden and a disappointment as a book that was purchased for something like $150 would only be bought back for an extremely low price like $20. This has happened to me numerous times and it is upsetting but many of us, including myself, say ok and take the measly $20 because it’s at least something, and it’s better than having piles of books that we don’t want. An even more upsetting part about trying to sell back books is when they tell you they can’t buy your book back because they aren’t using that edition anymore so then stuck with the book and not even the option of selling it back for a few dollars.

While the price of tuition steadily rises every semester and the cost of books aren’t getting any cheaper students are beginning to turn to alternate ways of getting their books at a more reasonable price. With EBay, Amazon and half.com students are buying books at sometimes half the cost of what they are priced at the bookstore, and they are also selling them for more on those websites also. An article from the Daily Lobo also touched on this topic, “Publishers have responded to cost concerns by expanding options for lower-cost texts, including electronic books, loose-leaf editions, black-and-white editions, abbreviated texts, textbooks by the chapter and customized editions” (Daily Lobo). Students are really taking advantage of these different options because they are cheaper, and with students carrying laptops to school on a daily basis, electronic books can be accessed by just a click of a mouse. The Daily Lobo said that “independent research center, Student Monitor, (reported) that students spent an average of $670 on textbooks in 2006. Publishers share the common goal of helping students succeed, and they are committed to working with students, parents and faculty to make this goal a reality” (Daily Lobo). At the end of the article they left a website titled Textbookfacts.org with more information concerning the topic of textbooks and I am going to follow with urging you visits that site as well. The need for textbooks will always be there but other options in the way we receive them or use them could help in cutting the high costs that we all are burdened with semester after semester.

http://www.dailylobo.com/index.php/article/2007/08/publishers_work_toward_student_success_retention