More books for the buck: textbook rental programs help students keep more money in their pockets

University Business, May, 2005 by Julie A. Varughese

Students are required to sign a contract detailing the consequences for not returning books on time.

From her experience, the first 86 percent of students returned books. Those who didn't return books would have their credit cards charged with the retail price of the book. In cases where credit cards are denied or have been cancelled, the student's account is sent to the accounting department and classified as an account receivable. That means they are not allowed to register for classes or borrow from the college library. This accounted for 3.5 percent of all students, Emerson says.

But, she says, "It's amazing how many people settle bills." And she recounts, "You have to have the accounting department's cooperation, to enforce the contract's provisions."

"Every night we would check to make sure we had a copy of a contract," which required extra work and extra staff.

The antagonist in her rental program story is the publishing industry. "Now publishers weren't really happy with me," Emerson recalls. "One publisher called and she asked what HCC thought they were doing. I said, 'I'm making books cheaper for students.'"

The publisher tow her that faculty doesn't care. But, explaining the financial dilemma for students, Emerson protested: "They do--and I care," she says. "I have a real problem ripping off college students."

But Schlichenmayer doesn't think it really affects publishers very much if students rent, because even when new books are resold as used books for several semesters, the publisher doesn't profit.

"It's not as controversial as one might think," he says. "Once sold, then it goes into the used-book channel The recirculation of books prevents the new sale of books. Some publishers say they don't mind it or they'll make it work."

If the institution's store is selling a book for $100, "the store paid $75 for the book, plus freight ran about 3 percent of gross income," Emerson explains.

"So when you rent books at 60 percent, you're in the hole by 15 percent the first semester," she says. "In the second semester, you're breaking even."

She describes the third semester, the first summer session, as "gravy."

"You owned the book, you had on it the shelf, you didn't have to buy from publishers, didn't have freight cost. By the end of the fifth semester, we were okay. We did not quite return what we expected, but we had done well."

She goes on, "The next year (second year), we returned more than $500,000 to the college on textbook sales of about $4.5 million. We had not only made it cheaper for students, but faculty were happy because students had all their books, and you made administration happy because of the bottom line."

"I think it is something that would particularly work at a community college."

"I knew the program was a success when we came out of the second semester," says Emerson, "and one of the math instructors said, 'Sarah, I have to thank you for something. I just met with my classes for the second time and every student had a book: So I knew the program was a success."