Janet McCann, musical theater senior and Sooner Bookstore employee, reshelves a book Aug 4. at Sooner Bookstore on Campus Corner. Photo by Jerry Wofford/The Daily.

Preseta Guta-Guta Paul, Spanish senior, listened to the tips offered by classmates about ways to cut the cost of textbooks. But it was not until the fall semester of her junior year that she decided to put some of those tips to use.

It was a couple of weeks into Paul’s biochemistry class when she learned from friends there was a biochemistry book being advertised for $80 on hub.ou.edu.

Paul contacted the seller of the book. They arranged to meet in Oklahoma City to make the transaction. Paul gave him $80, and he gave her the book she could not pass the class without.

“I was really excited because the one at the bookstore cost $100,” Paul said. “I would have only saved $20, but every bit counts.”

But the story does not end happily ever after for Paul.

Paul said it was only when she attended the next class meeting, she realized she was sold the 2002 edition, not the 2007 edition she needed.

Paul’s endeavor to save $20 dollars ended up costing her $180: $80 for an outdated book and $100 for the new book, neither of which she could sell back to any bookstore.

Paul is among thousands of OU students who are using creative or risky measures to defray rising textbook costs. According to the United States Government Accounting Office, GAO, textbook costs rose 186 percent from 1986-2004. That is roughly a 6 percent increase per year, and experts say the increase shows no signs of slowing. They have been increasing at twice the annual inflation rate over the last two decades, according to the National Association of College Stores.

The average student currently spends $900 per year on textbooks, which is nearly 20 percent of tuition and fees at a four-year institution.

Reading between the lines

The textbook industry makes more than $6.5 billion a year at college bookstores, according to Tuscaloosanews.com, which said textbooks are the hidden cost of higher education. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the college stores that are making the huge profits off of textbooks sales because the gross margin has remained the same since 1989.

Gross margin, which is used to cover personnel cost, costs of freight and other costs relating to operating the store has remained relatively the same since 1989, according to NACS’ 2008 College Store Industry Financial Report. According to NACS’ 2008 College Store Industry Financial Report, the current average gross margin on new textbooks is 22.7 percent.

The report also states that after expenses are paid, a college store makes an average of 4.5 cents for every dollar worth of new textbooks sold.

The gross margin on used textbooks is higher than on new textbooks.

According to the report, the average gross margin on used textbooks is 35.9 percent. According to NACS, the increase in the gross margin is because used textbooks require more handling and more operating expenses. Used textbooks also present a higher risk to the store, because they can’t be returned, if they are not sold.

It is the publisher that is profiting the most in the oligopoly market at the expense of students and faculty because the publishers of the textbook market knows students will buy whatever the professor assigns.

The bookstores

Local and on-campus bookstores in Norman have reported that the increase of textbooks have impacted them a great deal.

Boomer Textbook manager Seth Wilkenfeld said he saw many affects of textbook cost at his previous job as a manager for a bookstore in North Carolina.

“When the prices went up at my location we saw more and more student theft,” he said. “They’d steal books from our store and then sell them back to off-campus bookstores in the area.”

Wilkenfeld said he worries the same thing might happen here because students might try anything to subdue the cost of college expenses.

The University Bookstore has also seen a drop off in sales, according to textbook manager Jason Gentry. He said they are trying to do everything possible to help keep students’ cost low, with their used books model guiding the way.

“The rising cost of texts has definitely affected the purchasing habits of college students across the board,” he said. “But we are doing everything in our power to keep the students total investment as low as possible.”

The used book model allows students to both buy and sell back used books to and from the University Bookstore, in order to save money and make money back which helps keep the students overall investment low, Gentry said.

“We are doing everything within our control to put the lowest cost textbook in the hands of our students,” Gentry said.

According to Gentry, in the 2007-2008 fall and spring semesters the bookstore’s buyback program was used more than in the previous school year.

“This past spring the University Bookstore paid out $50,000 more at buyback than they did at during spring 2007,” Gentry said. “We have acquired a quarter of a million dollars more in used inventory than last fall.”

That means if a student purchases a used text at $75, he or she is saving $25 off the publisher’s retail price. Additionally, if that same text is re-adopted for the spring semester the store offers the student $50 at end-of-term buyback, making the student’s total investment $25.

Boomer Books and Sooner Textbooks now offer students a deferred payment option. This deferment plan will allow students to purchase textbooks and pay later.

Bookstores also are affected because they must increasingly compete with online bookstores, which typically offer cheaper prices. For years campus bookstores have seen competition from online textbook sites.

The Internet has increased students’ choices in buying books and is often cheaper than what they would cost in a local bookstore, recent OU grad Brent Mathews said.

“My freshman year my parents paid for my education and expenses so I got all my books from the bookstore no matter the cost,” Mathews said. “But after that my parents stopped paying and I started having to fend for myself. With book prices being so expensive I started checking online, getting them from places like eBay and Amazon.com where I found them a lot cheaper.”

Even with the growing industry of online book buying the University Bookstore says it welcomes the competition by matching it and adding the comfort of local, personal service, Gentry said.

“We’ve seen an increase in competition by online bookstores,” Gentry said. “However, we have continually increased our online presence over the past several years.”

The stores also offer free in-store pickup, which helps students avoid shipping costs, as well as making all online purchases returnable to the store under their regular return guidelines, Gentry said.

“These options are simply not offered by online competitors,” Gentry said.

Jessika Carrington, human relations junior, said she finds it easier to buy from local bookstores but always checks the Internet to compare prices when buying books for class.

“I usually buy my books from the book store because it’s more convenient,” Carrington said. “But I will search online before I buy them. So I guess I kind of do both.”

Phillip Easterly, history senior, said he buys books at the bookstore because he can examine the product before be spends his money on it.

“I prefer buying books in the store. I like to actually see what I’m purchasing,” Gentry said.

Both Carrington and Easterly said with the cost rising as much as it has been they are really going to have to weigh their options out before spending money on books this fall semester.

Textbook 101

Some students are not satisfied with discounts applied to only used books and are learning other ways to cut costs.

According to a survey conducted by eBay in July 2004, 43 percent of students surveyed said they have chosen to not purchase required textbooks for at least one class in order to save money. This statistic shows nearly half of the students in college have gone without the proper textbooks in at least one class to save money.

OU graduate Charlie Caple said that when he was a student he opted to go through at least one class without a book.

Marquetta Frye, psychology senior, said she learned to mitigate cost of textbooks by buying her books offline and to use the textbook library established by President David L. Boren.

“In comparison to the first semester of my freshman year, I might have spent $300 to $400 dollars on my books,” Frye said. “The last time I almost used the bookstores to purchase my books a couple of semesters ago, it would have cost me $600. Now that I buy my books through Amazon.com I spend half that.”

But sometimes, even Amazon.com cannot help the psychology major purchase all the books needed for the semester. Frye said she sometimes must go weeks without purchasing books for her classes. She said she postpones buying a book for a week or two because she waits to examine each syllabus to see how long she can wait before buying her books.

“My last class, I didn’t have enough money to buy a book,” Frye said. “I had to wait about a month before I could buy the book. I ended up getting lucky because my friend who had taken the same class a couple of semesters ago let me borrow the book. I still didn’t buy the book because I didn’t have enough money.”

When she cannot buy the textbooks she has to postpone buying, or when she wants to cut costs in order to buy all the textbooks she needs for the semester, Frye said she uses the textbook library.

The textbook library consists of selected required textbooks primarily for general education courses that have the highest enrollment as well as courses that have comparatively high textbook cost. Blake Rambo, Boren’s press secretary, said Boren launched the textbook library in Fall 2007 to help reduce the burden of textbook cost on students.

“I remain extremely concerned about the high cost of textbooks for our students,” Boren said via e-mail.

Boren said the university is better able to assist the greatest number of students possible who are most adversely affected by textbooks cost by focusing on general education courses with high enrollments and courses that have extraordinarily high textbook costs.

The textbooks are free and are available to check out for two-hour increments. All books must be returned before the library closes.

Frye said she likes the textbook library and has been using it for the past three semesters.

“It’s free books, and it saves me about a hundred bucks,” Frye said.

Along with the textbook library, Boren also appointed a Presidential Task force to work directly with him to develop ideas to reduce textbook cost for students. The task force hopes to further reduce the burden of textbooks and encourage faculty members to avoid requiring new editions of textbooks for their courses if earlier editions that can be purchased at used book prices are adequate.

“Sometimes it appears that only minor changes are made in new editions by publishers in order to enhance their profits at the expense of students,” Boren said.

Frye said these minor changes cost her $150 this previous semester.

“I’ve used old editions in classes that used the new books just fine,” Frye said. “I just paid attention in class and lab. The changes were really small anyway.

Another trend students are using is sharing textbooks.

Frye said sharing books is really common. She said she has noticed it a lot on campus, she said most of her friends share their books with each other.

“I’ve shared textbooks with people before,” she said. “Some of my friends go in half on a book and just make a reading rotation schedule.”

Bill for a bill

Starting this fall, Oklahoma freshmen will luck out with a new lock-in bill.

In 2007 former House Speaker, Lance Cargill, authored a bill which allows incoming freshmen to choose a guaranteed tuition and book rate while enrolling.

The new bill, House Bill 2103, requires every public higher education school in Oklahoma to offer this new locked-in rate. If incoming freshmen wanted to lock in their tuition, their fees would remain the same for as long as it took them to get their undergraduate degree.

Mathews says the new bill will certainly be a benefit to college students, but wonders why this bill had not been authored when he was coming into college.

“Where was this bill when I was in school?” Mathews said. “I should get like a voucher or something to pay my student loans off.”

With tuition increases happening over the past several years, this new bill will help college students, Mathews said.

“Every year I was here we got this big long ‘We have to raise the tuition’ e-mail from Boren,” Mathews said. “And I can only imagine that tuition cost will continue to go up, so this is going to be a great deal for new students it seems.”

Freshmen will be notified of the recent tuition increases when enrolling, and can decide to take the set plan. The bill also states that no student who chooses the plan can pay more than 15 percent than a student who declined the plan.