Issue date: 10/17/09 Section: News

14 units: $360. Parking permit: $45. Textbooks: $575. Education: priceless?

With the cost of textbooks rising, students are questioning what education is worth. Paying full price for textbooks, a necessary staple for students, is becoming less popular and more financially burdensome. Southwestern College is helping students discover new alternatives.

With prices going nowhere but up, SWC's rental program has been flourishing. Faculty are also aware of the rising cost.

"A lot of professors seem generally concerned with the prices that their students have to pay," said Debbie Williams, textbook buyer at SWC. "And they often opt for an edition that has used copies available."

"If you take 10 units, you might spend $260 for the registration fees and then $600-700 on books, depending on the class," said Professor of Mathematics Alex Juden. "I would prefer to keep the prices as low as possible."

Bookstore personnel agree.

"The rental program on campus is great," said Williams. "We charge a flat fee of approximately $30. The books that we offer are usually all gone by the end of the first week of class."

Websites such as Chegg.com are following suit. Chegg offers rentals to students for as low as $60. As an added incentive, the company plants one tree for every book rented or sold through the website. Chegg claims to have saved students more than $43 million since 2004.

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