On the eve of a new school year, college students everywhere are gearing up to face a dreadful ritual: where to find and how to pay for those ever costly textbooks. With college textbooks averaging $100 a piece, it is no secret that they represent one of the biggest expenses for college students who spend between $700 and $1,100 a year in that category. This is not new considered the fact that a 2004 federal study found that Textbooks prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, rising an average of 6 percent a year or twice the inflation rate. With that in mind, it was just a matter of time before the ubiquitous iPhone and the ever growing Apple's apps store appears in the picture with a solution. It comes in the form of a free app called Bigwords from a company by the same name.
The the app works by taking the burden of searching for availability and price comparisons off the shoulders of users. Whether you are looking to buy a new, used, digital books or just renting, all you have to do is enter the books' titles, authors or ISBN codes into the app vast database and hit the price-comparison button.
From there, the app goes to work searching about 30 different sources like Amazon.com, CourseSmart.com, textbooks.com and figures out the best deal by taking in consideration, factors like shipping costs and any discounts you may be entitled to.
Searches can be customized so to look for books by their condition, exclude books from third-party sellers like the ones on eBay, or from specific stores.
To complete your transaction, you have the choice to stay within the app and do it right there or you can have your "shopping bag" transferred to a PC via e-mail for finalization at your convenience.
To make its point, Bigwords claims that the average saving is 66% for new books and more than 35% over online purchases made without using it.
For more, see NYTimes.com
Showing posts with label college students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college students. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
CourseSmart LLC offers e-texbooks free for subscribers, on iPod.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that CourseSmart LLC , an e-textbooks provider for college students with more than 7,ooo titles, is making its collection available on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch, free for its subscribers.
Typically, students rent an e-book for 180 days and during that period, they will have full access to their textbooks, can consult their digital notes and do researches for a specific word or phrases right from their iPod or iPhone.
At the end of the subscription period, students will lose access to the titles. But at nearly 5o% savings per tittle for 18o days which is typically the length of a semester, that is not a bad trade off considered the short shelf life of a physical book and the hassle of figuring out what to do with it at the end of a term.
Typically, students rent an e-book for 180 days and during that period, they will have full access to their textbooks, can consult their digital notes and do researches for a specific word or phrases right from their iPod or iPhone.
At the end of the subscription period, students will lose access to the titles. But at nearly 5o% savings per tittle for 18o days which is typically the length of a semester, that is not a bad trade off considered the short shelf life of a physical book and the hassle of figuring out what to do with it at the end of a term.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Texbook publishers to offer book rental option to students.
With college textbooks averaging $100 a piece, it is no secret that they represent one of the biggest expenses for college students who spend between $700 and $1,100 a year in that category.
This is not new considered the fact that a 2004 federal study found that textbooks prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, rising an average of 6 percent a year or twice the inflation rate, according to the New York Times.
And as private companies have moved in to offer textbook rentals as an alternative to buying textbooks straight up, the nation leading textbook publishers have taken notice.
Just last week, one of them, Cengage Learning announced that it would start renting books to college students this year at 40 percent to 70 percent of the retail price the New York Times said.
With Cengage’s rental option, students will get immediate access to the first chapter of the book in e-book format, and can choose from a menu of shipping options for the printed book. At the end of the rental period, usually 60, 90 or 130 days, students can either return the textbook or buy it.
Other power houses in the textbooks business have jumped into the trend with Follett Higher Education Group, which manages more than 850 college bookstores, starting a pilot rental program this fall at about a dozen stores, including those at the State University at Buffalo, Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, and California State University at Sacramento. The stores will offer about 20 percent of their titles for rent, charging 42.5 percent of the purchase price.
For more, see NYTimes.com
This is not new considered the fact that a 2004 federal study found that textbooks prices nearly tripled from 1986 to 2004, rising an average of 6 percent a year or twice the inflation rate, according to the New York Times.
And as private companies have moved in to offer textbook rentals as an alternative to buying textbooks straight up, the nation leading textbook publishers have taken notice.
Just last week, one of them, Cengage Learning announced that it would start renting books to college students this year at 40 percent to 70 percent of the retail price the New York Times said.
With Cengage’s rental option, students will get immediate access to the first chapter of the book in e-book format, and can choose from a menu of shipping options for the printed book. At the end of the rental period, usually 60, 90 or 130 days, students can either return the textbook or buy it.
Other power houses in the textbooks business have jumped into the trend with Follett Higher Education Group, which manages more than 850 college bookstores, starting a pilot rental program this fall at about a dozen stores, including those at the State University at Buffalo, Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, and California State University at Sacramento. The stores will offer about 20 percent of their titles for rent, charging 42.5 percent of the purchase price.
For more, see NYTimes.com
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