Textbook Buyback Just Ain’t What it Used to Be.
Stephanie Capps was a new student at Clark College in Vancouver, Wash. when she first bought her textbooks last year. Capps paid about $500 for all the books — but when textbook buyback time came around, she was offered only $20 for one of her four books.
“I just felt like it was a rip off and definitely not worth it,” Capps said. “I rented less books because I saw the textbook buyback advertisement and thought I would be able to sell them back.”
Capps’ anger is not unique — many have felt that textbook buyback programs are “not worth it.” As the end of the school year approaches, students are beginning to line up to sell back their textbooks or are trying to figure out what else to do with them. Often, they are frustrated that the amount of money offered in the buyback program is a small fraction of the books’ original cost.
According to a Business Insider article, the price of college textbooks has increased by 864 percent between 1978 and 2013, and an average student spends upwards of $1,200 per year on textbooks and supplies.
“That’s about 39% of tuition and fees at a community college or 14% at a four-year public institution,” wrote Mamta Badkar, the reporter.
Officials in charge of textbook buyback at Clark College say they’re trying to keep things fair. Monica Knowles, the college’s bookstore manager since 2005 and a bookstore worker since 1998, said she works to keep costs down for students while offering as many options as possible, including new, used, rental, and e-book options. The bookstore is not profit driven, Knowles said, but it needs to stay competitive in the textbook market at large.
Knowles said she has experienced angry students, but the situation is a rarity: “A student getting very upset with us doesn’t happen very often,” she said. “We work very hard to offer our students options.”
But she acknowledged most students will not see a lot of money back. With the rise of online buying options and the quick pace of new textbooks being published, the value of books can drop sharply after just a year, Knowles said.
“It used to be where you brought a used book back in good shape and you got half of what you paid for it,” she said. “It just used to be a lot easier, and more money for students.”
According to Knowles, the biggest reason that Clark does a buyback program is so that low-income students have lower cost options like renting and buying used when textbook prices rise. The college calculates how much inventory it needs for the next quarter — but it can’t afford to buy additional textbooks that may not be resold. When textbooks are resold, the bookstore turns a profit on that exchange.
The college buys back used textbooks that it needs for next quarter at a premium, meaning it pays students a good price. As for the remaining books, a third party vendor — Nebraska Book Company — gets an opportunity to buy them back from students, though often at a much lower price. The vendor in turn sells the books wholesale online.
“You’re recycling something that you didn’t want. It will likely end up in a landfill otherwise,” Knowles said. “You should go to sell them early on and if you are unsuccessful, go again the following quarter, things may have changed.”
Julio Vega, a sophomore at Clark, thinks this is the best strategy.
“I go early and often,” he said. “I am like the first one in line every time.”
Professors’ textbook choices — particularly those by new faculty — and department policies often dictate buyback prices, said Vicki Nier, the bookstore’s course materials purchaser.
“The teachers have a lot of freedom to choose what textbook they want. It depends if it must be new, if it can be an ‘e-book,’ or if it has one of those access code,” Nier said.
Some newer textbooks entice teachers with an interactive learning platform or study help and make it so students have no choice but to buy the book brand new so that they have the access code.
“Sometimes we contact the teacher and ask if the access code is necessary… a lot of times they aren’t even used, but end up costing the student much more,” Nier said.
Different textbook prices can often widely range for comparable curriculum and content, she added. “I have experienced times when one English teacher was teaching the same class as another, but one book cost double what the other did!”
But different departments are beginning to streamline, Nier said, all using the same textbooks and publishers — a positive development for students who struggle with the cost of textbook prices.
