TIGER TV ONLINE REPORTER
Amidst the rush of each new semester, students often search for the cheapest textbooks at the last minutes.
Students can compare prices for expensive textbooks on Ebay, Craig’s List, Amazon, local text book distributors and the University bookstore.
Greg Upton, the chief economic advisor for Student Government, is currently working on legislations that will remove sales tax from college textbooks.
“We collected data last year and saw how much students were spending on textbooks,” Upton said. “Through those numbers we’re going to quantify how much it will affect the state if we do this.”
The numbers were unavailable at the time of the interview.
Upton said SG has to present the proposal to the Metro Council School Board and the State Legislature. Currently, SG is visiting other schools in Louisiana.
“We’re trying to get Senates at other schools to pass identical resolutions to get all Louisiana schools on board with this,” Upton said.
Upton said he hopes that with enough political pressure and evidence that the resolution won’t significantly affect state budget the state legislature will look favorably on the proposal.
Since the State Legislature will not meet until the summer of 2010, Upton said a congressman to propose the resolution and specifics are still undetermined.
Upton said the proposal will apply to all public and private Louisiana colleges.
Kimberly Braden, kinesiology sophomore, said she thinks textbooks are a burden to students.
“I feel that if there were more discounts for students on campus, besides that five percent Tiger Cash discount [at the bookstore], it would make a huge difference,” she said.
Dave Anderson, accounting professor, said the publishers of the Accounting 2000 book offered to print his class a cheaper, paperback version.
Anderson did not know why the publishers made the offer.
Digital textbooks are also an alternative to print.
University classes that offer digital textbook options include finances, chemistry and information systems and decision sciences.
Some vendors, like ichapters.com, offer 50 percent off digital textbooks.
But digital textbooks cannot be sold back to the vendor, Upton said based on his personal experience.
Braden said she didn’t look favorably on digital textbooks either.
Braden rents books for approximately thirty dollars per book a semester. Students can rent textbooks from various online vendors.
