Campus Store Weights In on Rental Debate

In an opinion piece earlier this month in Inside Higher Ed, a University of North Dakota professor claimed that rental textbooks limited student access to course materials and stifled critical thinking and conversation. Jason Katzman, CCR, assistant director for academic resource support, CU Book Store, University of Colorado Boulder, says he understands the prof’s points but argues rentals are a symptom rather than a cause.

“Twenty years ago, a student bought a book, sold it back at the end of the semester, and maybe received something close to half (although probably not) of what they had paid if the book was being used again the next semester,” Katzman wrote in his Inside Higher Ed rebuttal. “Of course, professors complained then that the buyback process devalued the educational experience by encouraging students to part with important materials they might need for another class or later in life as a reference. Then, along came the Internet and Amazon, and the model that traditional collegiate textbook retailers had been using for years was upended. For many stores, renting textbooks is a way to compete while remaining financially viable.”

Market forces determine where students decide to get their course materials. Selling a textbook for $400 has become unthinkable, so rental has become a way for bookstores to remain relevant and viable. The current trend of providing students low-cost digital course materials as part of tuition or course fees is another solution that helps publishers and bookstores stay in business while driving prices down for students.

“If the higher-education community wants to spend large amounts of energy working on the high cost of course materials, they should. It’s important,” Katzman wrote. “However, we’re being shortsighted. In addition to course materials delivery, another model that’s broken is higher education itself. What happens when Amazon or somebody else finds a way to offer a bachelor’s degree for 75% of its current cost?”

Prof Vents about Textbook Rentals

Does renting textbooks save students money or cost them the real value of a college education? Sheila Liming, an assistant professor of English at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, makes a case for the latter in an opinion column for Inside Higher Education.

“A degree used to mean learning from texts and racking up a cumulative store of skills and reference materials along the way,” she wrote. “But with the rise of textbook rentals, the rules of learning are getting rewritten, and not by education professionals, and not in accordance with the needs of student consumers, either.”

Her issue with rentals is they’re promoted as a cost-savings option but there are limits to how students can access and use the materials. Those are roadblocks that inhibit critical thinking and conversation, according to Liming.

“Rental companies insist that a given book can only be ‘useful’ to a student for the duration of a single semester, and so encourage students to see their own learning as fated for expiration and uselessness,” she said. “Even worse, rental companies and vendors—including campus bookstores—actively discourage students’ efforts to use the text they have rented, since wear and tear threatens the longevity of a book that a vendor wants to re-rent over and over again.”

To Liming, rental is just the latest “scheme” to make a buck, and is doing so at the expense of students’ education, depriving them of the ability to look back at previous classes or assignments to gauge their progress.

“Students are paying more and being coerced into renting because they are told they must, and  because they have not been made aware of their options,” she concluded. “It is therefore up to education professionals to show them—and to fight for the expansion of—worthy, cost-friendly alternatives, including both OER (open educational resources) and affordable print editions. Those alternatives do exist, and anyone who says differently is, as the saying goes, probably selling something.”

Liming may have a point when it comes to affordable alternatives for her English classes, but what about required texts for introductory biology or chemistry classes? Do students with other majors actually want to keep them to reflect back on and will they ever consider those textbooks affordable?

Louisiana Finds Way to Deliver Good OER

While open educational resources (OER) are often touted as an important step in keeping the cost of course materials in line, finding quality materials can be a problem, especially for K-12 instruction. Teachers surfing the web for individual lesson plans is not really an ideal way to deliver excellent content.

“There’s more bad OER out there than good; that’s a fact,” Rebecca Kockler, assistant superintendent of academic instruction for Louisiana, said during a panel discussion at the recent SXSWedu conference. “We need to find the quality stuff and elevate it for everyone.”

The Louisiana Department of Education has taken a positive step in the right direction by making integrated curriculum available on its website. The content is aligned with the state’s core standards and adaptable to the needs of individual students, providing teachers with more time to just teach.

The Louisiana approach also couples professional development for teachers with the sharing of best practices and curricula, and it’s paying dividends. A 2017 study found record growth in the high-school graduation rate and the rate of college attendance. In addition, the research noted that state fourth-graders had the highest learning gains in the nation in a national reading assessment test in 2015.

“Using OER wasn’t our goal,” Kockler said. “Quality was our goal.

Publishers Share Views in CAMEX Panel

Executives from six of the largest college textbook publishers offered their thoughts in a panel discussion at NACS’ Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) 2018 in Dallas, TX.

Ashley Gordon, a digital content strategist and founder of Mockingbird Publishing, moderated the discussion, sponsored by Cengage.

On the future of academics and course materials:

“There will be continued movement to digital,” said Scott Virkler, chief product officer, McGraw-Hill Education, “and pressure on schools to show outcomes.”

“I believe print will be around for some time to come. For a lot of students, that still makes a lot of sense,” said Mike Wright, vice president and director of sales, W.W. Norton & Co.

“The student consumer will have more choice” but will expect materials to directly contribute to their personal and professional success, said Tim Stookesberry, senior vice president, education, Wiley.

On ways publishers can work with campus bookstores to build stronger relationships with faculty:

“Stores have so much knowledge about students, you could help faculty make the best decision about what materials to adopt” and which format options are available, said Cheryl Costantini, vice president, content strategy, Cengage.

“Help faculty in understanding affordability. Faculty don’t care where students get materials and sometimes think students are getting a better deal,” said Bill Franck, senior vice president of sales, nursing and allied health, Elsevier-Health Sciences.

On ways to sustain inclusive access (programs that provide digital materials as part of a course fee):

“Be willing to change and adapt,” said Nik Osborne, senior vice president, strategy and business, Pearson. “We’re looking for opportunities to grow. By starting early together we can build out roles for each to play.”