Feeling the financial weight of textbook prices? Local services are looking to alleviate the fiscal burden.
Blyph.com, a web service created by entrepreneurs Brian Turley and AJ O’Neal, helps students get textbooks for free. The website was born from the dissatisfaction its creators saw among students when it came to textbook options.
“I was shocked by the high prices of textbooks when I first came to school,” said Turley, Blyph.com co-founder and BYU student. “I thought to myself, ‘there has to be a better way’ and that led me to the idea for Blyph.com.”
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“We hope that our site can help students save money,” said co-founder O’Neal. “It is ridiculous how much bookstores charge students for textbooks.”
That claim holds some weight according to the Student Public Research Interest Groups whose studies show textbook costs are rising faster than inflation. In many cases this means college campus bookstores profit while their students suffer. However, the BYU Bookstore is taking steps to ensure students have the best buying options.
Tom Hirtzel, textbook manager for the Bookstore, said while the Bookstore includes a 25 percent markup on most books profit margins serve to cover the costs of offering a bookstore on campus.
“Although the Bookstore is a non-profit organization, we are still required to be a self-sustaining entity,” Hirtzel said. “We don’t receive tithing or tuition support, so we have to have a traditional bottom line set up. However, despite that setup, we are only required to break even. That is why we offer the largest bookstore textbook sellback in the country. We give more money back to students than any other campus retailer in the United States.”
In addition to textbook sellback, the BYU Bookstore offers a book exchange and will accept books even if the student drops a class, a service many online retailers don’t offer.
“The bookstore is doing a lot to keep the prices of books down and offer students the most options possible,” Hirtzel said. “We now rent over 500 books at a lower price point than a book purchase. We also show the prices of other retailers on our website so students have as much information as possible before purchasing their books.”
If these local options don’t satisfy textbook needs, other online services like Amazon Marketplace and Half.com can help connect people all over the country who are looking to purchase or sell textbooks. Half.com, a subsidiary of eBay, offers new and used textbooks in a variety of conditions and price points. Amazon’s structure sports a similar setup to Half.com, but also provides a service to students to buy electronic versions of textbooks they could keep on a tablet or smart phone via their Kindle app.
