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If yous were to ask Sandra Kerley how important it is that she'south able to become textbooks for free, she would tell you that this seemingly minor do good is "life changing."

"It helps us pay the electricity bill,"said the 35-twelvemonth-old Kerley, a tertiary-twelvemonth business administration student at Tidewater Community Higher in Virginia. "It helps us put nutrient on the table for the kids. It helps us buy other supplies for class."

Kerley uses Tidewater's "Z Degree" program, which relies solely on free, open-source textbooks to eliminate a substantial and growing role of what's driving up the cost of higher: the often prohibitive expense of class materials.

Cost of college textbooks
File photo. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Lowering the price of textbooks has long been something reformers see as a way to help students burdened by rising tuition. The toll of new printed textbooks continue to rise—up more than than 7 percent last year alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 82 pct between 2002 and 2012, as calculated by the Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan research arm of Congress.

In that location are some estimates, even so, that textbook costs may exist going down. Between 2011-2012 and 2013-2014, the U.S. Department of Education contends, the average amount students spent on books and supplies declined past 2 percent at public, iv-year universities and colleges and a little less than i percentage at individual non-profit institutions.

There are several reasons students may exist paying less for books fifty-fifty as the cost of new texts is going upwardly. First, more and more than are renting their course materials instead of buying them, which tin save hundreds of dollars throughout the form of an education. In 2009, roughly 300 campuses had rental programs. Today, more than 3,000 colleges and universities exercise, co-ordinate to the U.S. Public Involvement Research Group, or PIRG.

Five ways to save money on higher textbooks:

ane. Comparison shop. Check out the dissimilar ways you can go your easily on a item book. The electronic edition could be cheaper than the rental or vice versa. And buying it online could price less than shopping at the campus bookstore.

2. Store early. Stores sell out of their used stock quickly, so if you don't want to shell out cash for a new book, shell the crowds to get a used one.

3. Get to know the library. Many professors will put copies of textbooks on reserve so you don't have to buy them in the get-go place.

4. Read the fine print. You lot may think you found a deal, merely brand sure you're ownership the right edition. And, for e-books, bank check to encounter how long you'll have access to the materials.

5. Brand friends. Know someone who took the same class terminal semester? This semester? Sharing class materials saves money.

That has pushed down prices throughout the rest of the market place, said Richard Hershman, vice president for authorities relations at the National Clan of College Stores. "Textbook rental programs …[have] created a lot of residual competition and forced publishers to sell digital products at better prices."

2nd, the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Instruction Opportunity Human action required publishers to disembalm their prices to faculty or whoever is in charge of selecting course materials. Universities and colleges, in plow, take to list that data on their online form schedules so students tin can start shopping around early on.

But other reasons for the decline in what students pay for textbooks are more troubling, said Nicole Allen, director of open up education at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition, an alliance of research libraries based in Washington, D.C.

"In that location is a really alarming trend of a lot of students non buying their textbooks because the cost is too high,"Allen said. "Overall student spending on textbooks may exist down, but the question is how much of that is because students haven't bought the books they were supposed to because they tin't afford them."

That tendency was confirmed by a report released last year past PIRG, which surveyed more than 2,000 students at 150 universities and institute that roughly 65 percent had decided against buying a textbook at some bespeak because it was likewise expensive.

Groups including PIRG are advocating for more than open-source textbooks, which would exist complimentary to students online and relatively cheap to download.

Tidewater isn't the only schoolhouse that has started to integrate these materials into their courses. The University System of Maryland ran a airplane pilot program last spring at the behest of its student council. Eleven faculty members from vii institutions across Maryland participated. Roughly ane,100 students saved about $130,000 in merely ane semester.

"Kinesthesia are open to this, and they are eager to do what they can to cut costs for students, but they have to residuum that confronting quality of the materials,"said M.J. Bishop, director of the Center for Bookish Innovation. "That volition be the biggest hurdle going forrard."

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Laura Colarusso is a freelance announcer based in Boston. She has written for Newsweek, The Washington Monthly, The Daily Beast and The Boston Globe on a variety of issues including pedagogy and politics....