Pierce to Lease Books

Pierce to Lease Books to Students
Education: College sees the program as a way to make texts
more affordable. Faculty Senate president calls it 'a great idea,'
but the effort has its opponents.

By SOLOMON MOORE, Times Staff Writer

WOODLAND HILLS--With new textbooks costing as much
as $70 each, Pierce College will launch a pilot book-leasing
program beginning in January designed to ease students'
financial burden, officials said Tuesday.

The BookLease program apparently would be the first on a
California college campus, Pierce officials said.

"The big issue here, and at every other college, is that the
price of books has gotten so high that a full-time student can
easily spend $300 to $500 every semester," Pierce President
Rocky Young said. "Books are starting to overshadow the
cost of tuition."

Students would be able to lease a new $70 textbook for $45
per semester, said Pierce bookstore manager Larry Kraus, with
the book's lease price dropping to $34 in subsequent
semesters. Students would in effect pay for the depreciation of the
book, Kraus said, and a leased book could turn a profit for the
bookstore by its third semester of use.

Officials could not say how many of the 13,900 students
might be able to participate in the program right away.
Lease programs have run into opposition elsewhere from
instructors who say that repeat-use requirements tend to limit
academic freedom. Officials said such opposition had not
become an issue at Pierce. "I think it's a great idea," said Helen Krahn, the president of
the Faculty Senate. "Really, textbooks have become so
expensive. This morning one young lady told me she paid over
$500 for her textbooks." Krahn said most Pierce teachers already use the same text
repeatedly in order to allow students to purchase used copies
and keep costs down. Young said that instructors who wish to
switch books more frequently could opt out of the leasing
program.

Karl Pohrt, an American Booksellers Assn. board member
and owner of a bookshop catering to University of Michigan
students in Ann Arbor, said Pierce's plan is interesting but
unnecessary.

"I don't think textbook prices have made any large jump in
the last couple of years," he said. "The publishing industry
isn't necessarily gouging people with their prices, either."
Besides, students have resold their used textbooks for
years, Pohrt said, generating almost the same savings the
Pierce book-leasing program would create.

"If somebody buys a book from me for $10, and it's going to
be used again, they can sell that book back for $5," Pohrt said.
"So this whole rental thing doesn't sound like such a super
deal."

Calls to major publishers Tuesday afternoon were not
immediately returned.
Although textbook leasing isn't new, Kraus said he has
found only a handful of similar leasing programs around the
nation.

One of the oldest is at the University of Wisconsin's
Whitewater satellite campus. According to bookstore manager
Terri Meinel, the campus has been leasing books since it was
established in 1868.

Students pay only $45 a semester to lease all the books they
will use during the semester. "They get about $250 to $300 worth of books," Meinel said.
"If they don't return the books at the end of the semester we'll
bill them for the retail price."

At Pierce, Kraus said, students will give the bookstore a
credit card deposit for any books they lease.

An advantage to leasing rather than buying a used book
comes in the price, said Tom Aduwo, assistant bookstore
manager at Pierce. Students save about 10% by leasing rather
than buying a used book, he said.