Consultant Says Student Textbook Exchanges Are the 'Save of the Future'
by Jim Brown
March 30, 2005
(AgapePress) - Frustrated by rising education costs, more college students are seeking online alternatives to spending hundreds of dollars on textbooks at campus bookstores.Up to 25 percent of the students on some university campuses are turning to online book exchange sites to buy textbooks or sell their used ones. Companies like Virginia-based SINAPSE Consulting, Inc., are creating book exchange services for student governments at many schools.
Jon Lunardi, president of SINAPSE Consulting, says many students are feeling the pinch of overpriced college textbooks. "The campus bookstore often charges students quite a bit of money for the books, and then when they buy them back, they don't buy them back for near as much as [the students] paid for them," he says. "So students really feel they're kind of being not ripped off, perhaps, but taken advantage of."
Lunardi says the students are justifiably hesitant to spend big bucks on course materials that they will not need in the following semester. "Costs to go to university are going up," he observes, and likewise, "Costs just to be a student and go to the different sporting events are going up, and to actually have an education -- the costs to have those materials and resources that the professors need you to have -- keep going up."
As a result, SINAPSE's CEO points out, "More students have to take out loans or get new jobs, so any way that a student can save money, the student is going to do that." For most students, he contends, "Every penny is really valuable at that stage of life."
And since every penny that can be saved really counts, Lunardi says many students are starting to ask, "Why not cut the middleman out, use the Internet, and sell student to student?" Lunardi's company helps campus groups establish online book exchanges using software that allow students to buy, sell, and trade their textbooks online for prices they think are reasonable.
The custom-built book exchange software gives students an easy way to list texts they want to sell at any time during the school year. At the same time, buyers can browse the available books and make their purchases from the convenience of any web-connected computer. SINAPSE Consulting, Inc., works with student governments around the U.S., including the University of Oklahoma and Purdue University.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
