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Colleges Save Students Cash by Forcing Them to Buy E-Textbooks

by Terrence O'Brien on October 26, 2010 at 03:40 PM

textbook on ipadWe've already heard about how students are clinging to printed textbooks despite many of the advantages provided by e-books. Sales of electronic textbooks are expected to increase in the coming years, but growth may be relatively slow, with optimistic estimates projecting a 15-percent adoption rate by the end of 2012. But a new report from the Chronicle of Higher Education claims that some colleges could accelerate the transition by forcing students to purchase e-texts. The move is a proactive one on the part of schools to reign in rising textbook costs. Both students and teachers struggle under the current model, by which individual texts can cost up to $300 and buying used books is actively discouraged. Students dropping out because they can't afford the required materials has apparently become a serious issue in colleges like Daytona State in Florida.

Schools are now testing programs that save money by opting for electronic texts over printed copies (as they're much cheaper to produce and distribute) and by leveraging the power of bulk purchasing to negotiate even lower costs. Rather than suggesting that students go to the bookstore to buy a text, administrators include the text's price in the cost of tuition as a "materials fee."

Mirta Martin, the dean of Virginia State's business school told the Chronicle that each of the textbooks required for the college's senior level accounting course costs at least $250. After hearing countless stories of students who were performing poorly because they could not afford the textbook, Martin started looking for alternatives. Flat World Knowlege, an e-textbook provider, offered free online access to texts. An offline electronic version would cost $25 per-student, or $30 for a print edition. But, by including the price of the materials in the cost, and thus guaranteeing every student would buy a copy, Virginia State convinced Flat World to drop the price to $20 per student. Flat World even added extras like a downloadable study guide, an audio book and an iPad version that would normally drive the price of the bundle up to $100.

Students will likely continue to resist the push towards digital texts. They may be lighter and cheaper, but they're harder to read while lying down in bed, put more strain on the eyes, and don't allow you to scribble notes in the margins. But, if administrators succeed in their goal of driving down textbook costs by 75- to 80-percent, we're sure very few students (your writer included) will complain.

Tags: college, death of print, DeathOfPrint, e-books, E-readers, e-textbook, education, FlatWorldKnowledge, media, school, textbooks, top

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