Exchange Program aims to cut book costs

By Tania Cervantes
The Guardsman

As the price of textbooks at City College remains unaffordable for many, attempts to develop a student book exchange program and other solutions to make texts more accessible flourish.

Last fall, the Department of Education awarded the City College bookstore a $250,000 grant for the development of a program that would ease book prices for students. Bookstore Manager Don Newton then allocated the funds to the Book Loan Program.

The Book Loan Program, where students can borrow textbooks for an entire semester, currently serves over 1,500 students, saving them each about  $100 per semester. The program is funded by the optional $5 student activities fee students grant when paying tuition.

“It’s a really good program,” Book Loan Coordinator Deena Samii said. “We are run by students, funded by students and actually serve students.”

The grant’s co-author and Ocean campus Associated Students President Ryan Vanderpol said the money will aid in extending the Book Loan Program and help create an exchange system where students could lend textbooks and borrow others in return.

The exchange program, though still in development, is expected to begin in the spring of 2011.
“One of the things we are considering is the ability to negotiate prices with publishers,” Vanderpol said. “Teachers can negotiate prices and they may not even know it.”

The Textbook Affordability Task Force, one of many groups working to identify possible solutions, seeks to evaluate textbook costs and explore ways to help to students who cannot afford them.

President of the Academic Senate Hal Huntsman said sometimes publishers simply stop publishing old editions thereby forcing students to purchase new ones.

“Editions come out so often that sometimes we have just bought 20 books and the next semester a new edition is out and our books are then almost valueless,” Samii said. “It seems like a really good way to make money.”

The bookstore sells new books at 35 percent higher than the original price. The revenue goes to payroll and other expenses for running the store. Used books, however, are sold at a standard price of 23 percent less than new ones.

Students are now finding lower prices on the Internet at sites like Amazon.com and Half.com.
“If the books are too expensive, I just buy them online sometimes at half the price, except for new editions,” City College student Gabriel Hernandez said. “If that doesn’t work then I just don’t buy them but I struggle a lot in class.”

E-books are another option under consideration by the task force, but the viability of this solution remains to be seen.