Textbook Buybacks Seem Bogus
March 13, 2009 by Travis Anderson
With Winter Quarter 2009 winding to an end, many students will be participating in more than just the beer drinking and partying traditions of spring break. I'm talking about a tradition that is music to some student's ears. I'm talking about selling back their old textbooks for cash.
A lot of students sell their textbooks from the previous quarter at the Discovery Exchange or Aida's Off Campus Books. But, are they really getting a good deal? Doubtful.
Since the first time that I bought textbooks myself, I couldn't help but feel a tad shortchanged at the end of the quarter when it came time recoup some of my cash. The first book I ever sold back was a math book for Math 103. I bought the book from Discovery Exchange for roughly $90 new. I sold it back the following quarter for $35. Doesn't seem quite right, does it?
That would probably be because it's not right. The fact that someone should pay for a book, which is a necessity to their own education, use it for less than three months, and despite its condition, have it bought back from them for a fraction of its original price is ludicrous. Obviously, most everything suffers from depreciation, but there is a definite difference between a used car and a used book. A book essentially is as good as new as long as it has all of its pages. So why do you have to pay so much for them and not be able to sell them for squat?
Let's look at the facts. As a student, you buy your textbooks, and at the end of the quarter you have the opportunity to have them bought back, by one of two places: Discovery Exchange or Aida's Off Campus Books, located directly across the street from Columbus State's campus. Both have the same policy on book buybacks, which is that they will compensate the seller up to 50 percent of the original price of the book. The key word here is "up to." Recall the Math book I sold back my first year Columbus State, when the numbers are crunched, I only received 39 percent of the book's original value. However, this is not the worst-case scenario.
The worst-case scenario is the scenario that I was given recently. This scenario is when the school decides to change the book for a certain class. Take for example, English 208. The book, which was fairly expensive, is going to a new edition next quarter, which means they will not accept it for buyback. And by "they," I mean both bookstores. The young woman working the counter at Discovery Exchange, who asked that her name not be used in this story, explained that the new books are usually essentially the same, with the jacket being the most common, and sometimes the only, change.
So what can we students do, other than consider ourselves lucky that we have the opportunity sell our books back at all? The answer is not a whole lot. With a little luck however, and a little patronage, there is another option that could potentially help. The Columbus Explorer's classified section now allows you to post classified ads for your used textbooks. You have an opportunity to cut out the middle-man, and try to get a fair price for your book. The opportunity for the buyer to get a book for less than shelf price, and the seller to get more than the DX or Aida's was willing to give them.
Whatever you decide to do with your used textbooks, and however you feel about the relatively high price of college textbooks, or DX's and Aida's buyback policies, remember, there is almost always someone who is taking the class you've just taken.
As for myself, I'm going to try and find that person and hope I can make a deal.