Ah, new school year, which surely entails move-in day, a bursting “first week” social calendar, new friends and UMass pride. With the university bill paid and summer job earnings saved, the average student has little to worry about. One is ready for a year of great classes, unlimited meals at the DC, exhilarating life in a dorm room and late night trips to the store to exploit the funds on the UCard. That relative financial stability is short-lived, however. There is one more expense that is seldom considered during pre-academic planning: the cost of textbooks.

Depending upon the major and the number of classes taken, textbooks can lead to a significant financial burden. Books on topics such as marketing and the sciences can easily cost over $150 per copy. To make matters worse, they are often republished or “bundled” with a CD-ROM or a work book that will rarely be used by the instructor. The option of buying without the additional materials is often inexistent.

Resourceful students have come up with numerous ways to counteract to the publishing industry. From borrowing a friend’s book to photocopying, the strategies to minimize the expense are as varied as the students themselves. Sympathetic to the tribulations of undergraduates, professors have agreed to help by providing course materials on reserve in the library or scanning the text and placing it online. These alternatives, however, did little to diminish the soaring costs. Acquiring textbooks usually resembles a marathon, where the winner gets the book quicker at the lowest price.

Once purchased, a textbook depreciates in value; its retail shelf life is highly dependent on the subject and its popularity among professors. The university buy-back program does not compensate, as the books are bought back at prices that are nowhere close to the original. With each academic year, newer editions are published, preventing older versions from circulating. As a result, students are left with piles of books that they will not use and are unable to sell.

In the past, the expense of textbooks came as a surprise since students discovered what they had to buy only after stepping into the classroom.  Recently, this has changed. The Higher Education Opportunity Act, originally passed in 1965 and re-authorized multiple times, lastly in 2008, required all facilities of higher education to post textbook information along with each course during course selection process.  The act also abolished “bundling” practices: students should see less class materials conjoined in plastic wrapping.

While convenient in theory, the new law puts an immense strain on both the professors and the bookstores. Class selection for the subsequent semester is done many months in advance, allowing instructors less time to choose their course materials. The bookstores must receive the orders quickly and collaborate with theinformation technology department to publish the information in a timely manner.  This technique may prove problematic in larger universities with different departments and numerous courses.  It will also terminate the printing of course selection books, as not all schools digitalized their catalogues.

As the element of textbook price-surprise is disappearing from their agenda, students are discovering new ways to obtain the necessary materials.

Well aware of the search for cheaper books, some companies are beginning to offer an innovative service, textbook renting. With textbook renting, the prices are considerably lower: renting a title as opposed to purchasing it new could yield a savings of up to 60 percent. However, the books must be returned by a set date at the end of the semester.

Web sites such as Chegg.com  present students with the option of borrowing; corporations such as Follett Corp. launched Rent-a-Text, a program that in conjunction with campus book store, allows students to pay for their rented books in cash or by a credit card.

Retailers such as Barnes and Noble also let students obtain course materials, online or in store. Some even offer digital textbooks, a newer practice that is an emerging threat to the publishing industry. The new programs are all about “giving options” to knowledge-hungry students.

The savings in renting vary, and renting is not always cheaper than buying a used copy.  Aside from being financially responsible for a lost, stolen or simply not promptly returned item, students are also limited in the markings they could make while borrowing – minor highlighting and note taking is permitted, while complete obstruction of text is not.

Along with the knowledge these books provide, the students are given the power to save.  That power is becoming greater as an increasing number of websites pitch in to the mission of affordable textbooks.  A Google search for “cheap college textbooks” provides pages of results that include the words “rentals,” “textbooks” or “cheap,” and any imaginable combination of these. The choices are out there for those who are willing to use them. And so are the textbooks – so let the marathon begin.

Yevgeniya Lomakina is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].