According to price estimates on ASU’s bookstore website, Estaban Martinez could have spent $1,110.75 on the eight textbooks required for his six classes this semester.
The civil engineering sophomore is one example of how high textbooks prices could be a financial burden on ASU students, but unlike previous semesters, the bookstore is now offering a different option.
Students can reduce the cost of textbooks this semester through a book rental program run by the campus bookstore’s new management company Follet Higher Education Group. The University turned over management of the bookstore after the spring semester.
Director of Bookstores Val Ross, a parent of college students, knows too well that students and their families struggle to pay for textbooks and said ASU’s new option to rent textbooks could offer financial relief.
“Textbooks are expensive, of course, but they are a good investment,” Ross said. “Now they are less expensive because we have so many rental titles.”
ASU’s bookstore carries about 4,000 titles and nearly 45 percent of those books are available to rent, Ross said. The rental program can save students 50 percent or more on textbooks.
Ross recommends students pre-register to rent books via the Sun Devil Bookstore website in order to speed up the checkout process.
Before the fall semester began, Martinez said he planned to purchase his books from the campus bookstore. Unlike other students, Martinez said he was fortunate to have a grant that would cover the cost of his books.
If Martinez were to purchase eight new books this semester, his bill would total $1,110.75. For used books, the total would be $834, depending on availability.
Only one book on Martinez’s list was available for rent.
If Martinez chose to rent that one book and purchase the rest new, his lowest possible total would be $798.55.
Before classes began, chemical engineering freshman Madison Klug said she would bypass the bookstore and pay nothing for her books.
“I am getting them from my sister, friends and boyfriend who have already gone through the classes,” Klug said.
Follett Higher Education Group supplies nearly 900 college campus’s with new and used books.
Reach the reporter at leandra.huffer@asu.edu
