While there is hardly anyone that is oblivious to the rising costs of a college education these days, there might be some people still not aware that there is another under-reported cost hiding in the college education receipt. College tuition is still out pacing inflation at public and private colleges and a review of this phenomenon can be checked out in depth at this report at BusinessWeek.com. Excluding the cost of college tuition, the cost of college textbooks is now starting to become a front and center topic for financial studies and government reports.
There are two main government studies that shed a light on the current crisis of textbook costs for college students. Both studies do a lot of referring to each other and their researched statistics. The first study was released by the U.S. Department of Education which you can read in full PDF format here.
The DOE study states that full-time students at four-year public colleges spend an average of $893 a year on textbooks and about $10 less a year for two-year students. The most interesting figure from this study is that since 1986, the textbook prices have risen almost 186 percent, or 6 percent a year. When you look at other product prices in the market they all generally rose by about 3 percent. Some public and private universities publish their own figures of college textbook costs for a student per year and they range from $400 - $1,300.
The next government study was carried out by the Government Accountability Office and is referred to many times in the Department of Education Report. This report is even more in depth and all 51 pages of research can be viewed here. One of the most interesting facts derived from the GAO report is the admission that in most cases identical textbooks are actually cheaper in foreign markets. Stated directly from the report, “Traditionally, the geographical separation of markets has made it difficult for U.S. students to acquire lower-priced textbooks from other countries. More recent developments in Internet commerce have reduced the costs for buyers in the United States to acquire textbooks from other countries, causing publishers to reexamine their distribution arrangements.”
Before uncovering the crumbling market of textbook manipulation and textbook sky-high profits in the industry, it’s important to look at a few more facts to understand the scope of the situation. Out of the entire percentage of a students tuition of a four-year public university, the textbook costs are now accounting for 26 percent of what the student will pay to attend college.
The high cost of textbooks is now having a direct impact on student’s education. When looking at the previously stated study by the Public Interest Research Group it claims U.S. college students spend $900 a year on average. The high cost has now forced about 60 percent of students to forgo purchasing a required book because of it’s cost according to a National Association of College Store study.
Besides trying to obtain profit and increase royalties, the GAO study found another major reason college textbooks keep on increasing. The GAO says the rise of textbook prices are typically due to the frequent publishing of new editions and textbook supplements. There are some specialties of study that would require this constant updating since science, technology and medicine can change so quickly. But a freshman physics book, calculus book and English literature book would make one wonder why there needs to be an updated version every semester. The assumption would be that if you create a new version and it’s to be used in class, you can sustain profits.
Before you start to assume who is getting all of the profits in the business, let’s take a look at the numbers as released by the National Association of College Stores. They breakdown the price distribution in an easy to view layout.
Publisher: 64.3 percent
Bookstore: 22.4 percent
Author: 11.6 percent
Shipping: 1.7 percent
The college textbook revolution is now ringing in with a new model and ideas with the power of the Internet, Web 2.0 companies and also environmental minds pulling together. There are offshoots of a variety of companies that are aiming to fix the rising textbook problems.
Interviewed right here on the Business Shrink radio show, we had Jason Turgeon, who is one of the pioneers in this industry of trying to remove the middleman from the textbook market. Jason describes Textbookrevolution.org on his website like this, “Textbook Revolution is the web’s source for free educational materials. This is a student-run, volunteer-operated website started in response to the textbook industry’s constant drive to maximize profits instead of educational value. TBR’s mission is to drive the adoption of free textbooks by teachers and professors. We want to get these books into classrooms. Our approach is to bring all of the free textbooks we can find together in one place, review them, and let the best rise to the top and find their way into the hands of students in classrooms around the world.”
In our interview with Jason he mentioned a report that helped start him on his passionate drive to try and revolutionize the textbook industry. That report is titled, “Rip-off 101: How the Publishing Industry’s Practices Needlessly Drive Up Textbook Costs,” a report by State Public Interest Research Groups. It has some great statistics and will give you an even more in depth look into the industry which you can find here.
Another company called CampusBooks.com is trying to revolutionize the industry in a little bit of a different way. CampusBooks aims to be a comparison shopping engine much like sites like Shopzilla, Pricegrabber and Bizrate. Campusbooks.com describes themselves on their site like this, “a free Web service providing back-to-college shoppers with the most comprehensive search filters for the textbook industry. CampusBooks searches dozens of merchants and hundreds of listings and filters them into one of five categories — New, Used, eBooks, Rentals and International and provides customers with easy-to-find seller comments, more cost-saving coupons and up-front price summaries.”
There are a slew of other companies cropping up trying to combat the price problem with textbooks. A couple of websites that are often ignored but have played a major role in forcing textbook publishers to take a closer look at their business practices are right under your nose. Websites like eBay.com, Half.com (an eBay company) and Amazon.com can literally save students hundreds of dollars every year when buying textbooks.
A case study was done by ASUwebdevil.com. In this study that you can read here, they found that a typical English 101 textbook cost $52.75 at the ASU owned bookstore and at a private bookstore the cost was $57.25. If you skip off campus and hit your computer you can find the same book going for $40 on Amazon (new), $23 on Amazon (used), $26 on Half.com (used) or on the local Craigslist for $30 (used). Looking at Barnes and Nobles’s price, they still ring in a cheaper price at $46.75 compared to on campus bookstores.
For the person that wants to shop fast and get everything done in a hurry, they can obviously hit the campus bookstores, whether campus owned or privately owned and get an inflated price. For the student that is on a tight budget, they should take a close look at the Internet site’s prices and free sources that are growing in popularity like at Textbookrevolution.org.
One more piece of the story is still developing into a business that many thought would be impossible. Textbook rental seems to be taking off much more than bookstores gave it credit. Besides being given credit for a great idea, there are major hurdles to providing a campus-wide textbook rental program. The Illinois Board of Higher Education studied the feasibility of textbook rental out of their state university system bookstores. They found that the estimated start-up cost could be as high as almost $16 million at Illinois State University. Besides this study many bookstore owner’s have stated that space for inventory would be a major problem to fully implement this idea.
The high start-up cost hasn’t scared away Osman Rashid, 37, who is the CEO of Chegg.com. The business model of Chegg.com does not fit all students since their offerings are more geared towards first and second-year college students. They say the reason for doing this is because these students tend to take core classes where textbooks used tend to be widely used through the countries higher education system. While the actual numbers of textbook rentals are being kept secret, Rashid did reveal they have kids from over 1,000 universities using their service. One feel good aspect of the Chegg.com textbook rental service, is that they claim to plant a tree for every textbook that is rented through their service. With the green revolution in full swing on it’s own, this just might help bring Chegg.com more customers that are being raised with green-awareness.
If you would like to listen to the interview of the founder of TextbookRevolution.org just click on the Business Shrink Podcast icon on the top right. If you’re a college student that’s trying to weave your way through college debt and make it through, we’d like to know what you’re thinking. Leave us a comment and tell us what you use to try and make college more affordable. If you work in the Textbook Publishing Industry or work in a College Bookstore we’d like to hear from you to on these issues. Just drop us a comment or fill out the form here.
January 22nd, 2008 - 10:29 pm
One thing that you did not look at is the effect that the boom of the used text market has had on publishers in the past couple of decades.
In order to create new textbooks, publishers take on enormous overhead through royalties paid, printing costs, general staff salaries, etc. These costs are recouped through the sale of textbooks (obviously.) However, now that the used text market has grown, publishers have become almost entirely relient on the first semester sales of a new book. The middle men (ie. the used textbook market) are reaping huge benefits buying back texts from students for $10-$15 and reselling them for $60-$80 (or whatever price undercuts the prices that publishers can meet.)
So what does it mean to the student if publishers have to recoup costs from the first sale of the textbook? Instead of charging $20 per book for 4 semesters, they now need to charge $80 per book to get back their investment.
This is also the reason that you see so many new versions of books. If a company stops profitting on books that have been released for over a year, it stands to reason that they would continuously relase new textbooks in order to keep the company alive.
Some great options for students are electronic versions of texts. One publisher in particular offers electronic versions for half price. They allow you to highlight and take notes on the page as well as store your edits online to access them from everywhere.
January 22nd, 2008 - 10:31 pm
I run my own textbook website for my university(Furman University), and we’re about to expand to over 500 schools.
This is basically my motivation! > www.collegebookshuffle.com
Good write up!
–Justin
January 22nd, 2008 - 10:34 pm
It’s expensive to have a good education
pleaseeeeeeeeeeee watch this link
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2335105
January 22nd, 2008 - 10:43 pm
Add this website to your list too. I found it a few days ago. If you can’t sell it, give it away!
http://www.socialbib.com/
January 22nd, 2008 - 11:22 pm
I saw this video while shopping on Valore in the past. This article reminded me of it.
http://www.valorebooks.com/CallTarget.do?Target=Promotional.ValoreInformationalVideo
January 22nd, 2008 - 11:30 pm
Agreed, the bulk of the publishing’s company’s costs are in development. I would imagine the profit margins on first run books are actually pretty tame. However, having been a full and part time student for basically the last 15 years (scary!) it’s galling to see a company change the cover art, a few of the homework questions and cases, and release a new version which becomes required course reading the next year.
I’m on my own dime for my books, so I actively seek out used copies and old editions, and make do when I need to acquire some of the new content. In many cases the old book is completely applicable at a fraction of the cost. What I find especially troubling, however, is that the professor for the course in question often times strongly implies that only the new book will do.
Publishing company reps carefully manage their relationships with profs and institutional administrators. Dinners, golf, and other perks are routinely offered as value adds for those who keep the new products on the shelves - and new students reaching for their wallets.
Artificially inflated prices eventually give rise to black/grey market innovations (torrents anyone?). I for one always appreciate the comical bluster and rhetoric from the mouthpieces of the ‘wronged’ industry leaders (RIAA, MPAA) who wake up one day and realize that through their sodomitic business practices are now screwing nobody but themselves.
January 23rd, 2008 - 12:26 am
I use socialbib now. I’d rather trade my old used textbooks for used books I need than pay for new (or used) ones at a bookstore. Much cheaper. Other than that, Amazon’s marketplace works pretty good too.
January 23rd, 2008 - 1:10 am
In a couple of years, the real story will be how a few enterprising college bookstores have managed to keep the doors open through such unheard-of tactics as customer service, low prices, supportive staff, etc. etc. while 98% of book sales have gone to the lowest bidders among a variety of web-based trading and auctioning services.
In other news, worn-out old professors from the sixties will be pilloried in the blogosphere and mainstream press for the bald hypocrisy of their leftist psychobabble given the sudden revelation of their involvement in kickback schemes orchestrated by the dying publishers whose revenue streams have been obliterated by online markets.
January 23rd, 2008 - 2:09 am
I would like to bring up the side of this subject that was brushed over quickly and rather harshly. I have worked in the textbook industry for 20 years, working for a used book wholesaler, as the Director of a Community Collge Bookstore and now as a salesman of a software company that sells point-of-sale systems. I believe you brushed off the college bookstores too quickly and way too harshly.
While Director of my bookstore, I worked hard to explain to my students, faculty and staff of the college just what the bookstore did for everyone. The bookstores are self sufficient, we pay for our employees wages and benefits, we paid rent and our own utilities to the college AND all of our profits went directly back to the college. What we made paid for our existence and everything left over went back to help keep students’ tuition and fees down. By circumventing the college bookstores, that actually helps raise the other costs of college.
On top of that, I believe you know how to lie with statistics…some of your pricing on textbooks can be skewed easily. There are times when the bookstore does have higher pricing, but the other variables were not brought up. Our return policy is a lot easier to work with for our students. What happens when the student buys the wrong book online? The get stuck with it and can not return it. With us, they had until the last day to drop a class to bring their books back for FULL REFUND.
The other topic which could be discussed for a very long time is book buyback. Take a $100.00 NEW book, the price for a used copy is $75.00. The price from the publisher to the bookstore is $75.00, industry standard markup is 25% on textbooks ( much lower than ANY other industry). When we bought back books, we paid 50% of the new price, so in this instance, we paid the students $50.00. That book cost the student $50.00 after purchase and buyback. When we bought the book back, we put our 25% markup on it and sold it USED at $75.00. The next student pays $75.00 and still gets the $50.00 buyback after they use the book - that student paid $25.00 after they used the book to it’s full extent. What other industry can show that?
The other topic that is a major factor is faculty involvement. If the faculty choose to change books, they have academic freedom to do so in most cases. That forces the bookstore to not pay the 50% at buyback, and the students get much less at buyback. The faculty have much more influence in this equation, but it is not brought as much.
January 23rd, 2008 - 2:10 am
It’s really quite simple. It’s a huge rip off which is only possible because it’s a captive audience.
You can have ONE copy of a hard cover book printed for less than $25. Softcovers are about half that. There is no excuse, other than greed, for soft covers selling at $80 and hard covers for $125.
January 23rd, 2008 - 2:10 am
Oh, yeah, here’s a funny one…
Shakespeare has a new edition coming out…how can THAT be justified???
January 23rd, 2008 - 2:14 am
I hope in a few years, college books will be available as PDFs or ebooks. This can save on the material costs. Students can have one reader and put all their books on it.
January 23rd, 2008 - 3:03 am
I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid buying textbooks that are blantantly overpriced. I borrwo books from the library, share books with my roomate, buy the “not for sale” softcover books on the internet, and even bum books from friends who took the class.
It’d be nice if my school library had copies of the books required for classes, but then how would the school store make money. I mean I’m paying $40,000+ a year in tuition as it is =/
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2331213
January 23rd, 2008 - 4:09 am
I just spent less than $50 on textbooks for four classes, two science, one government, and one philosophy. The government teacher tried to “make things cheaper” by using a custom edition of the textbook with some other stuff thrown in. Cost? $120, down from the $150 it would cost for the two books. I talked with her and found that she had 20 or so copies of the supplemental material she could lend out. I went on Amazon and found the text for $1.68. Between all the books, I saved between $300-350. If I ever walk into the campus bookstore again, it’ll be too soon. I’m even thinking about buying the Scantrons online…
January 23rd, 2008 - 4:10 am
1st semester freshman year was the last time I purchased books straight-up from the bookstore. I completely agree with Kurt’s post previously about bookstore prices and policies. These standards have been in place for a long time. What I have seen gone up has been the publishers costs for books to the masses. A big chunk of this ends up in TJ’s response about the life a modern book. How much has math changed in the last 5 years outside of advances in the calculators. Yet every fall semester I see “New Edition” on the shelf with no used books available. The only plus for me is where I have gone they are always a semester behind in computer science which allows me to purchase the “New Edition” book online for $20 shipped when in the bookstore they charge $130. Now this isan example which I have one every semester for the last six years (grad. school now) of how overpriced textbooks are in general. Publishers keep thinking that more books releases every year mean more profit. Why does one always keep pushing so hard for more? There is a point in being content that have not found for whatever the reason which has it’s roots in greed. Of the professors I know of most try to keep the same book and the same edition….partially because it’s simple but are told that the book is no longer available. When the average life of a book in the bookstore is two years locally from the time it is the “New Edition” to the time it is shipped out and no longer used a change is calling, it is only a matter of time before it hits the industry hard.
January 23rd, 2008 - 4:40 am
With all due respect to “Kurt”. I call bullhockey. I returned to college after 18 years to pursue my Master’s degree ( such is the state of Computer Science that to compete with all this outsourcing, near 20 years of experience is not enough anymore ). I came to find that the same Discrete Mathematics book had essentially not changed, save fo r the casual spelling modification, and changed problem question ( 2 questions in the entire book ! ). And for this, the price of the book had QUADRUPLED ? And upon checking the tuition for the that class ( were I to have been taking it now, rather than 20 year ago ), the class is almost triple. So don’t give me this ridiculous story about how it helps keep costs down. No one’s buying that tar and feathers story.
Case in point…I published a software development book in 1995. It sold for $39.95 in the United States and Canada ( $44.95 ). I came to find out that the book was printed in India and and Turkey, and sold for the equivalent of $4.00 and $6.50 respectively. I can certainly understand the economies of scale, people in those countries deserve access to information, but frankly not at the cost of the American consumer. And I can personally attest that those percentage breakdowns between publisher , book retailer, shipping and author….is WAY, WAY more skewed in favor of the publisher. And unless your book addresses a very broad subject, the author is liable to almost certainly never see a royalty other than the initial advance.
So, “Kurt”, when you try to convince the public that the prices charged in the United States ( much less a College bookstore ) are fair and equitable, take a second, no, third look and compare what the same book sells for new in other parts of the world, and ask yourself from the other point of view…”Is this really equitable ?”. If you’re being completely honest with yourself, I’m sure you’ll see how misguided your current view is.
January 23rd, 2008 - 5:46 am
I’m a college student right now and the prices of these books is criminal. It’s absolutely ridiculous how much these books cost, especially when you consider the necessity of them. A friend of mine bought a german book for around $150, by the end of the quarter (yes, i go to a school that requires me to buy all new books 3 times a year) it was falling apart. I mostly avoid the worst costs by buying my books on-line, however, a disturbing trend is appearing at bookstores. My school’s bookstore was recently bought by Barns and Noble and ever since they stopped putting any real information about the book when you order them online. It only gives you the name and number of the course and how many books it requires. Now you have to go to the bookstore and write down the ISBNs of all the books you need. However, I’ve heard of some schools banning students from campus bookstores if they catch them doing this. This forces students to buy all their textbooks from the overpriced campus bookstore.
January 23rd, 2008 - 5:58 am
[…] read more | digg story […]
January 23rd, 2008 - 6:43 am
If you’re interested in operating an on-line bookstore to cash in on the college book market, then OhioStateBooks.com would be a great domain name to target one of America’s largest universities. Well, you’re in luck, the domain name is for sale! Visit OhioStateBooks.com now and make an offer!
January 23rd, 2008 - 9:13 am
[…] prices are out of control - especially after reading on Digg.com that textbook prices have risen almost 186% since […]
January 23rd, 2008 - 11:06 am
What’s the big deal?
186% over 22 years is below 3% a year - which is the normal average rate of inflation.
January 23rd, 2008 - 11:16 am
[…] and Web 2.0 companies are trying to revolutionize the textbook industry with easy solutions.read more | digg […]
January 23rd, 2008 - 12:00 pm
I’ve been using bigwords.com ( http://www.bigwords.com/ ) for several years now, it almost always saves me a couple hundred each semester.
January 23rd, 2008 - 1:35 pm
[…] read more | digg story Posted in […]
January 23rd, 2008 - 3:09 pm
[…] read more | digg story […]
January 23rd, 2008 - 4:01 pm
Open a 1986 edition of a Chemistry book and compare it with a 2008 edition and you will instantly see a big reason for the increased prices. Old texts were black and white, with almost no photos or graphics. New books look like magazines, with massive full color graphics, which cost a lot more to produce. What about the web? In 1986 it didn’t exist. Modern texts have huge interactive websites, which are usually free to the student, but not to the publisher. These are NOT your father’s textbooks. Professors choose the books. If presented with a cheap black and white book with no website, compared with a colorized , graphics and web enhanced text, they will choose the book which provides the best learning experience for their increasingly visually oriented students. Add basic 3% inflation to major quality improvements, and you have a reasonable increase in prices. Combined with the fact that used books destroy the publisher’s market, and used book wholesalers have dramatically increased their effectiveness with new computer networks and warehouses, and you have all the reasons for the price increases and constant revisions.. Publishers are not criminals. They provide the service requested by their customers - the professors. The CalPirg study is full of innaccuracy and anectdote, designed to fuel complaints, ignores incovenient history and reality, and should never be used to guide any policy decisions. You get what you pay for, and everyone wants the best. You want fries with that? Guess what, they are not free.
January 23rd, 2008 - 5:45 pm
Marcelo, the point Kurt is making is that campus bookstores MAKE NO PROFIT. In fact many bookstores are in the red. It is the publishers that are responsible for the insane prices. You can argue with the benefits of the high costs, I think it’s important to question that, but the fact remains, that the bookstore is doing whatever it can to keep afloat and provide the students with things that they want and need. If the publishers charged anything resembling reasonable prices for the books and if the professors weren’t drugged by gifts and the like from publishers, you would have no complaint with the store.
Full disclosure: I have never worked for a bookstore and didn’t buy practically any books from my bookstore, but I worked “in the industry.”
January 23rd, 2008 - 6:45 pm
Great post with lots of great comments. Glad to see that so many students are getting entrepreneurial around the high cost of text books.
January 23rd, 2008 - 7:01 pm
[…] by Campus Entrepreneurship on January 23, 2008 Found this great post with the screaming headline, “College Textbook Prices up 186% since ‘86: Enter […]
January 23rd, 2008 - 7:52 pm
Part of the problem is that schools don’t let students buy books until the week before class starts. So, they don’t have time to wait 2-3 weeks for shipping from a used book site.
January 23rd, 2008 - 9:39 pm
Why not just see if the books are cheaper on Amazon while you’re still in the bookstore. That’s exactly what my mobile website does. Check it out on your mobile phone or iphone: http://www.isbnspy.com and start saving today
January 24th, 2008 - 4:45 am
DO NOT BUY OR SELL BOOKS FROM THIS SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They lie to you about pricing. They said they where going to give me 18.36 for a book. They actually only paid me 2.36 after they received the book. I filed BBB complaint they blew me off. They are a bunch of CROOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 24th, 2008 - 10:09 am
[…] Source [Business Shrink] […]
January 24th, 2008 - 1:48 pm
[…] have changed a lot since I went to college. This week, The Business Shrink reported that college textbook prices rose 186% between 1986 and 2004. They cite two studies by the U. S. […]
January 24th, 2008 - 2:11 pm
I have taught Spanish for more than two decades. The increasing complexity and sheer weight of modern textbooks never cease to amaze me. Compared with my own first college text (1969), the price is 29 times higher and four times as thick. The language hasn’t changed that much. You could put all the essentials into a 100-page book. The quality of the learning depends more on the teacher than on the text. I acutally put out reproducible “packets” for my students ($6.10 at the print shop). They master the material just fine. But I have to park on the opposite side of the campus from the bookstore. They have snipers posted and on the lookout for me.
January 24th, 2008 - 7:21 pm
About three years ago, I did an experiment to see if it was possible for me to become entirely paperless with help of my Tablet PC and two scanners.
I was able to do all of the following without wasting a single sheet of paper (except for the existing paper used for books and class handouts).
Lecture notes: On my Tablet PC, I took handwritten notes in color and even recorded lecture simultaneously. I also took hand-written notes on top of PowerPoint slides which were provided by nearly all of my professors.
Handouts & returned assignments: For any paper handed by my professors, I immediately scanned them using my portable USB scanner.
Submission of assignments: I saved the document to PDF and sent the PDF to professors via email. At the moment, I was hoping that professor would insert comments on top of my PDF document using Acrobat - as one of my IT professors already accepted assignments in PDF. I thought that it would save him tramendous amount of time while grading them and returning them back to students in printed format. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to convince him to do so.
Textbooks: I’ve purchased all of my books as digital copy and if the book wasn’t available electronically, I even cut the bindings off of my books and attempted to scan the entire book with ADF scanner. If the book was digitally scanned, I would convert it to PDF and OCR it to make sure all parts of the book was searchable. With a software called PDF Annotator, I was able to annotate on top of my books which were saved in PDF.
The result wasn’t what quite I imagined. In fact, I realized that the structure wasn’t quite there to support paperless learning and that most people are far too reluctant to transition into digital form. It was too cumbersome and took many hours. I even convinced three of my classmates (in IT) to purchase the Tablet PC. But once again, they weren’t really able to take advantage of what alternative input and medium had to offer. If students with fair knowledge of computer cannot do it, how can an everyday user do the same?
One day, Amazon.com released Kindle. It was suppose to be the ebook reader that was suppose to help people transition into digital paper like I was hoping - which Sony ebook reader has failed to do.
Amazon.com should have targeted the education market - for students and educators. Past sales of ebook readers have shown that having the label of high-end “novelty” product has worked. The customers really have to embrace the conecpt of hardware as an appliance. They were marketing to the wrong crowd - the gen X and babyboomers, who are probably most resistant to changes in medium, especially paper.
I say bring the textbooks for Kindle - with competitive prices that we, students, can afford!
January 25th, 2008 - 1:10 am
[…] College Textbooks Overpriced? NO WAY! […]
January 28th, 2008 - 7:45 am
[…] With the spring semester starting up, a timely report on textbook pricing appeared on Digg last week. From the Business Shrink: […]
January 31st, 2008 - 8:37 pm
Textbooks are really cheap if you go through sites like www.CheapestTextbooks.com. They price compare from many book stores and return you the cheapest textbook price. I’ve heard of people saving over 90%.
February 15th, 2008 - 12:50 pm
[…] Maybe we should of been invested in the school textbook market. […]