According to collegeboard.com, the average student spent between $800 and $900 to cover all of their textbooks over the course of the 2005-2006 school year. Prices have only increased since that time. An estimated one quarter of students does not even buy all of their textbooks due to sky-high prices.

Research coming out of the U.S. Government Accountability Office has found that the cost of textbooks at institutions of higher learning has increased at almost four times the rate of inflation. Students at Calvin and around the nation are united in their annoyance and even anger at the high and rising prices of textbooks. In the face of this issue, many students are resorting to other sources to buy and sometimes rent their books.

Fortunately for students, other options are becoming available. And, in recent weeks, even officials as high up as the House of Representatives are responding to what some see as a ridiculous overpricing of textbooks and exploitation of students.

Passed by the Senate in late 2007, the House has just passed a bill which reauthorizes the Higher Education Act. The bill includes an amendment which focuses on the rising cost of textbooks for college students.

The amendment calls for “increased transparency on the part of textbook publishers and [directs] universities to publish lists of required texts in course catalogues” said Cara Halstead, the public information officer of Pace University. In a press release, she went on to say that the amendment backers “hope that including texts in a course guide would allow students to get a more accurate idea of the real cost of the classes they are considering taking.”

One of the primary aims of this revision, via a required standard of transparency for textbook publishers, is lower prices. If publishers are forced to publish lists of textbooks and prices, the hope is that they will bring down costs to dispel the ever-increasing motivation of students to look elsewhere for books. Basically, once publishers make their pricing public knowledge, they will, in theory, need to lower prices in order to keep business and make a profit.

This amendment would also demand that publishers “disclose to faculty their wholesale costs, as well as an estimation of how long the book is supposed to stay current,” according to Halstead.

Still, some believe this amendment will not drive pri-

-ces down. Some feel the only surefire way to cut costs is competition. If the publishers and the campus bookstores do not lower prices, and perhaps even if they do, many students will continue to follow the growing trend: online shopping.

The National Association of College Stores has said that, in the 2005 to 2006 school year, 23 percent of textbooks purchased by college students were bought online. Calvin is no exception to the rising movement. Between the recently popular CSX online bookseller and amazon.com, Calvin students are quickly turning toward the internet for deals on textbooks.

Some students go even further. Those who are not content with buying books online can now rent them online. Companies like Chegg.com give students the option of renting textbooks for a semester and then returning them. Chegg can offer books for far cheaper than other businesses. There are the obvious disadvantages, but students around the nation are finding the convenience and the economic benefits simply too good to pass up.

But are students really getting ripped off at their campus bookstores?

“A college store makes 4.4 cents for every dollar’s worth of new textbooks sold,” according to the 2007 Financial Report of the National Association of College Stores.

It is not yet clear whether or not campus stores will reverse their current economic strategies. However, some of the results of price changes can be predetermined.

“If the prices of textbooks in the campus stores decreased, I would be more likely to by my books there,” said sophomore Caleb Rottman. Though, he said the benefits of online buying would probably still outweigh any changes made by campus stores, “unless the book store prices had a very significant decrease.”

Regardless of the financial strategies of publishers and bookstores, the heart of the matter rests in the wallets of college students. At Calvin, and every school, a growing contingent of the student body chooses to seek out the best deals they can find. If that means leaving campus bookstores to a dwindling customer base, so be it.