Spring Break
Senate introduces bill to decrease textbook costs
Students and faculty who have adapted to the high textbook prices may find relief in the College Textbook Affordability Act
Issue date: 9/13/07
"I found that in the first few years at Hopkins, I bought all my books from the bookstore at the same time, at the beginning of the year. Now I only buy the books as we get to them in the semester. I save money by not buying them all at once," he added.
So once you have your books and the semester comes to an end, it's time to get aggravated by the buy-back system.
Typically in college bookstores across the country, books are bought back for half the original price and sell it for 25 percent above that.
However determining prices ultimately comes down to what textbooks are in demand and knowing beforehand what books professors will want to use in the upcoming semester.
If bookstores aren't certain of these two factors, they can only buy the book back according to the national demand rather than that of the University.
According to Lynch, professors unfortunately tend to take their time in getting around to choosing their books for the semester and especially telling the bookstore what they will need in stock. "It's something of a struggle here at Hopkins to get them to tell us sooner rather than later," Lynch said.
But the delay is not completely the fault of the professors, Lynch explains. "Publishing representatives try and sell professors on these packages with all these bells and whistles which they don't really end up using," he said.
Some professors and universities have moved exclusively to online textbooks, hoping to avoid these problems. This does reduce costs significantly, but at the end of the day, it seems that most students want the tangible experience of a hard copy of a textbook.
"Sometimes you just want to curl up and read your book and you can't do that if you have to sit at a computer," sophomore Leora Brody said.
Professor Holland experimented with these online resources with no luck. "Several years ago, I used an on-line version of a major text; students could buy a license to use it for much less than the book itself. However, most students who used it didn't like it, and wasted a lot of paper printing everything out."
So once you have your books and the semester comes to an end, it's time to get aggravated by the buy-back system.
Typically in college bookstores across the country, books are bought back for half the original price and sell it for 25 percent above that.
However determining prices ultimately comes down to what textbooks are in demand and knowing beforehand what books professors will want to use in the upcoming semester.
If bookstores aren't certain of these two factors, they can only buy the book back according to the national demand rather than that of the University.
According to Lynch, professors unfortunately tend to take their time in getting around to choosing their books for the semester and especially telling the bookstore what they will need in stock. "It's something of a struggle here at Hopkins to get them to tell us sooner rather than later," Lynch said.
But the delay is not completely the fault of the professors, Lynch explains. "Publishing representatives try and sell professors on these packages with all these bells and whistles which they don't really end up using," he said.
Some professors and universities have moved exclusively to online textbooks, hoping to avoid these problems. This does reduce costs significantly, but at the end of the day, it seems that most students want the tangible experience of a hard copy of a textbook.
"Sometimes you just want to curl up and read your book and you can't do that if you have to sit at a computer," sophomore Leora Brody said.
Professor Holland experimented with these online resources with no luck. "Several years ago, I used an on-line version of a major text; students could buy a license to use it for much less than the book itself. However, most students who used it didn't like it, and wasted a lot of paper printing everything out."
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