In the last five years, NC State students have spent less on textbooks, while publishers continue to raise the prices of textbooks 7 to 8 percent each year, according to Director of NC State Bookstores Anthony Sanders. 

On Dec. 2, NC State Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Warwick Arden released the department’s annual memo emphasizing the importance of faculty in regards to lowering textbook prices.

“This memo concerns the relationship between the bookstore and the faculty, to simply make sure that faculty determine what is going to be their desired textbooks in a reasonable period of time before the semester,” Arden wrote. “[It is] an important piece to keeping textbook costs down, which in turn is one piece to trying to keep the cost of education down.” 

For there to be an accurate stock of used textbooks, which tend to run significantly cheaper than their newer counterparts, faculty must inform the bookstore of their textbook choices for the coming semester.

In this memo addressed to deans, directors and department heads, the provost asks faculty to choose the most cost-effective textbooks in a timely manner. The sooner the better, according to Arden, because it allow the bookstore more time to acquire used books and negotiate with distributors for the best deals on new textbooks. 

“Sometimes it can be very difficult for a faculty member perhaps who hasn’t taught a class for a while or who doesn’t know, ‘oh, this is exactly what I want to use for this class’ by October, but in general the earlier the better for everybody,” Arden said. “It just makes it a more efficient system.” 

Shelby Sessions, a junior studying electrical engineering, expressed his distaste for textbook prices. “I don’t buy many of them [textbooks], because they are so expensive,” she said. “I either find them online or borrow them from other people.”  

Sessions also prefers not to sell books back, claiming he’d only get, “at best” a third of what he originally paid.

The provost also calls for the need of digital textbooks as opposed to the physical copies that are also difficult for students to carry around.  

“It always surprises me that in this day and age that we still rely so heavily on the physical book as opposed to digital versions,” Arden said. “I think there’s a lot of progress to be made with working with publishers and wholesalers to make digital media more available at more reasonable costs to our students.”

But this medium of acquiring textbooks comes with its own limitations, which makes students like Emma Thompson, a junior studying biochemistry, wish that textbooks could just be cheaper. “Digital textbooks are more complicated and you only have access to them for a limited time, and I can’t use them as a reference for other semesters,” she said.

Sanders said the use of buyback options and renting books has succeeded in lowering textbook costs. 

“The bookstore is able to control prices by providing different format options, such as digital or rental, or by locating alternate vendors such as used book wholesalers or the online marketplace,” Sanders said. “In many instances, instructors or bookstore staff members are able to put together custom course materials that reduce the costs borne by students.”

Book buyback remains an excellent source for students, but has become limited in recent years due to the popularity of rentals, and, therefore, has affected the amount offered for books, according to Sanders.  

“[With] the rapid increase in the popularity of rental programs over the past several years, buyback has become somewhat marginalized,” Sanders said. “Buyback prices are determined simply by market supply and demand.” 

Sammi Fernandes, a junior studying human biology and anthropology, said textbook buyback wasn’t beneficial for her. 

“I used buyback my freshman year and I don’t think it was worth it. I’d rather just buy them for much cheaper off Amazon,” Fernandes said.

Sanders predicts that the trend toward cheaper alternatives to textbooks will continue in the foreseeable future.

“Pricing analytics, textbook rental programs and the growing shift to digital materials have all been major factors in textbook prices,” Sanders said. “In the immediate future, customized digital texts, adaptive learning products and Open Educational Resources will continue to reduce the cost of course materials for students.”