By: Jennifer Wilson
Word Count: 706
“Statistics for Business and Economics”: $140, “International Business”: $98, “The Economics of Money, Banking and Financial Markets”: $140, “Principles of Risk Management and Insurance”: $90, “Concepts and Cases of Strategic Management”: $170. The grand total for one Ole Miss senior’s textbooks for the fall semester: $638.
“It is completely ridiculous,” said Brandon Grimes, an Ole Miss senior and the recent purchaser of the previously listed books.
“I feel like I’m getting robbed every time I buy textbooks,” Grimes said.
These financial woes are felt by many students at Ole Miss at the beginning of each semester. The University of Mississippi Financial Aid website estimates that an average undergraduate student will spend $1,200 on textbooks during the 2011-2012 academic year. Graduate and Law students may spend up to $2,000 more.
In an attempt to make buying textbooks easier, a few universities have recently decided to completely change the way their students buy books. These colleges, including Brown and Cornell, have recently made the switch to digital textbooks, which can help students save money in the long run.
According to an article on Time.com, Brown and Cornell both offer digital textbook downloads for the Kindle, Amazon’s version of an e-book reader. Similarly, the University of California, Irvine, gave each of its students in a medical program an Apple Ipad to use and download textbooks onto.
Some students believe that the entire Ole Miss student body would benefit if the university jumped on board this new trend and switched to digital textbooks.
“I think having a Kindle to download books onto would be a great alternative,” Grimes said.
“It would save me money and it would be nice to only have to worry about one “book” rather than four or five.”
Other students believe that requiring an Ipad or Kindle for school would just provide new and different problems.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea,” said Elizabeth Wilson, senior at Ole Miss.
“They are too easy to break so it would probably get cracked or broken. Also, there would be added fees, like updates on the Ipad. I can see how it would be good for some people, but not for everyone.”
An Ipad currently costs anywhere from $300 to $500 and a Kindle is $100 to $200; the price for each depends on the model and the amount of extra features purchased. Hypothetically, if Ole Miss made the switch to digital textbooks, a student could make a one-time purchase of a Kindle at around $100, then all that student would have to do is download his or her textbooks each semester at a reduced price.
Many expensive books, like textbooks, can be purchased as Kindle e-books at about half the original list price. Also, some books can be bought by chapter, some as cheap as $3, so students could save money by only purchasing the required readings for their classes.
It is currently unclear how much money students could save by switching to digital textbooks because there are so many factors to consider. Also, not many colleges have been willing to make the switch because the technology is still so new. Could Ole Miss be in line to test this new trend in the near future?
Coulter Ward, Assistant Dean of Students for Student Involvement, said that to the best of his knowledge, such technology had not yet been discussed at Ole Miss, but he would not be surprised if it was soon.
“I would not be able to say much about Ole Miss participating in this transition, but I would say if other schools are going digital, that it is not too much of a surprise,” Ward said.
“Just look at the past 20 years. Newspapers, magazines, and other mediums are all going that way.”
Ward expressed that it would not be a shock if textbooks were completely discarded as the primary way that students obtain information.
“More and more print is just becoming obsolete,” he said.
Sources:
Brandon Grimes, Ole Miss senior, Management major, bmcockru@olemiss.edu
Elizabeth Wilson, Ole Miss senior, Theater major, evwilson@olemiss.edu
Coulter Ward, Assistant Dean of Students for Student Involvement, jcward@olemiss.edu
Database/Statistics- Office of Financial Aid: http://www.olemiss.edu/finaid/costofattendance.html
Time article- http://techland.time.com/2011/08/29/can-digital-textbooks-truly-replace-the-print-kind/
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