College students weary of dropping as much as $900 a year on textbooks may have a new option this semester: E-books.
Ten colleges and universities around the country are experimenting with selling electronic textbooks in their bookstores this fall. The e-books, which sell for 33 percent less than regular textbooks, are downloaded directly into students’ computers.
At the Princeton University Store, students shopping for their fall classes may have their choice of new book, a used book or a small plastic card with an access code that allows them to download the text via a Web site.
Pilot program
Though electronic textbooks have been available through some publishers and online sites for years, this is the first semester campus bookstores are offering the option on a large scale. If the pilot project is successful, e-books are expected to gradually spread to campus bookstores around the nation by next year.
There are currently about 200 textbooks available in digital form. Princeton is offering 10 e-book titles this semester.
High cost of texts
Publishers and college bookstore owners hope increasing the availability of less costly e-books will help quell some of the growing protests over textbook prices.
The average undergraduate now spends $898 a year on textbooks, according to a report released last semester by the State Public Interest Research Groups, a nonprofit consumer and student organization.
More than half of student say they have avoided buying textbooks for their classes and one in six dropped or decided not to take a course because the books were too costly, according to a survey by half.com, an online bookseller.
Part of the problem is textbook prices rose at twice the rate of inflation over the last two decades.
Digital negatives
It is unclear whether digital textbooks will really save students money.
At Princeton, for example, students taking a senior level economics course are required to buy “Investments,” a popular textbook published by McGraw Hill. It sells for $136 new, $101 used or $89.90 in electronic form at the Princeton U-Store.
Though it is significantly cheaper to buy the e-book, students may lose money in the long run because they cannot sell the digital textbook at the end of the semester. The Princeton bookstore pays as much as 50 percent of the cover price to buy back the paper version of some popular textbooks, the store’s marketing director said.
Digital textbooks also come with restrictions. E-books must be downloaded and read on a single computer and cannot be copied to classmates’ computers. The text is available for viewing for a limited time, usually 12 months or so. And the entire text cannot be printed at once, to discourage students from making paper copies for friends.
Hannah Nguyen, national student organizer for the Make Textbooks Affordable campaign, said the numerous restrictions on e-books are disappointing for students looking for ways to save money.
“We think that e-books are great, but we’re really leaning toward something that is more student-friendly,” said Nguyen, a recent University of Texas graduate.
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