By JEFF SILER of the Forum
The semester is just starting and we all know that book prices are absolutely through the roof, but hopefully by the time you’re done reading this your mind will be a little more at ease.
By this point, most people know that there are more options than just going to our campus’ bookstore and purchasing your books for class. There are online sites like Amazon, Buy, Abe books, and many others that give students an affordable alternative to purchasing their books from the school. When researching some of the core class textbook prices, classes like English Composition 1, Intermediate Algebra, Biology 1, American History 1, and a few others, the price difference really wasn’t as big as people make it out to be (American History 1 is actually cheaper at our book store than on Amazon and abebooks.com). Although some textbooks in the bookstore can be a bit pricey, it is still considered an excellent and helpful resource for students of Florissant Valley.
What students may not know about the bookstore is that they will buy back your books no matter where you get them. The bookstore also offers you the option to rent text books as well. In order to rent them students need a major credit card, not a debit card, which is a change that went into effect this semester. Laura Stevens, the auxiliary services manager, says that fact has seen the textbook rental industry suffer a major drop off. Another current trend that hasn’t seemed to take off, according to Stevens, is the usage of the ever growing eBook industry. A number of classes are offering their textbooks via the eBook option and eBook’s are actually substantially cheaper than your standard textbook (and more environmentally friendly), but the biggest issue seen is the fact that eBook readers are not cheap. The bookstore remedies this problem by renting out eBook readers as well. That gives students one more affordable alternative when preparing for their class schedule. Another growing trend is the usage of Facebook for classes. Professor Scott Dorough taught his Media Literacy via Facebook.
There are many options out there for students to get their books, but before you do, check out the campus bookstore. All purchases from the bookstore are additional revenue for the college, and hypothetically speaking, could essentially lower tuition costs in the future. Over 92% of the bookstore’s profits are made off of books and supplies sold to students and faculty. Another thing to think about is the fact that our schools tuition is much lower than that of your four-year institutions and if you think about it, you are still spending a lot less money here.
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| Photos by Bradley J. Rayford / Forum |
By JEFF SILER of the Forum
The semester is just starting and we all know that book prices are absolutely through the roof, but hopefully by the time you’re done reading this your mind will be a little more at ease.
What students may not know about the bookstore is that they will buy back your books no matter where you get them. The bookstore also offers you the option to rent text books as well. In order to rent them students need a major credit card, not a debit card, which is a change that went into effect this semester. Laura Stevens, the auxiliary services manager, says that fact has seen the textbook rental industry suffer a major drop off. Another current trend that hasn’t seemed to take off, according to Stevens, is the usage of the ever growing eBook industry. A number of classes are offering their textbooks via the eBook option and eBook’s are actually substantially cheaper than your standard textbook (and more environmentally friendly), but the biggest issue seen is the fact that eBook readers are not cheap. The bookstore remedies this problem by renting out eBook readers as well. That gives students one more affordable alternative when preparing for their class schedule. Another growing trend is the usage of Facebook for classes. Professor Scott Dorough taught his Media Literacy via Facebook.
There are many options out there for students to get their books, but before you do, check out the campus bookstore. All purchases from the bookstore are additional revenue for the college, and hypothetically speaking, could essentially lower tuition costs in the future. Over 92% of the bookstore’s profits are made off of books and supplies sold to students and faculty. Another thing to think about is the fact that our schools tuition is much lower than that of your four-year institutions and if you think about it, you are still spending a lot less money here.
Here is a another price comparison site that compares all leading textbook merchants:
ReplyDeletehttp://thecheaptextbook.com