After spending months visiting colleges and doing online research to determine the colleges that are the best fit, it’s time to get to the tough choices, the kind that isn’t based on which schools had the nicest dining hall or the cleanest dorms or the newest classroom facilities. Everyone knows what that means. It’s time to decide which schools are realistically affordable.
First on the list are tuition and standard fees. This is where most schools vary. Some end up costing upwards of $50,000 while others are under $20,000. Of course, most students don’t pay full price for their education, and many of the most expensive universities offer huge quantities of financial aid and merit-based scholarships. After these opportunities are weighed in, and the costs of room and board (also reported by universities) are added, most families begin to calculate how much they’ll need in loans and grants, along with how much of their savings and that of their child’s they’ll need to dip into.
Unfortunately, there is a looming cost that most universities don’t report: the exorbitant cost of textbooks that students are told they must purchase at the beginning of every term. While most families don’t forget about the cost of textbooks entirely, many vastly underestimate just how steep the prices will be. Throughout my experience in college, I have spent anywhere from $1000 to $1500 a year on textbooks. Further, prices are expected to rise at an ever more rapid pace as bookstores try to make up for the loss in revenue from students who purchase their textbooks from online sources like Amazon.com as well as those who illegally download copies from torrent sites. Incoming freshman this fall will pay hundreds of dollars more for their books over their college careers than those who are graduating this year.
While it seems that there is no relief in sight, some colleges are experimenting with new programs to help alleviate the cost of buying new textbooks for every class. These programs involve the use of cloud computing to provide electronic versions of required texts to students in select classes. As of right now, the distribution is on a small scale to determine the practicality and popularity of the idea. If they are successful, however, universities may be on the verge of reigning in out-of-control textbook prices. Until then, students and parents need to be made more aware of this hidden cost and plan accordingly.
Sources:
Holly Hacker, “Rising Book Prices Weigh Heavily on Student Budgets,” Collegiate Times.
“E-Textbooks Pilot Study Announced for 2012,” Ball State University, New Learning Technologies.