Outrageous College Textbook Costs - Help Is Here - But Is It Working?

College textbook prices are outrageous! In some cases, books cost so much that they are forcing students to skip college all together. The Higher Education Opportunities Act (HEOA) was signed into law in 2008 in an effort to help with this problem. Beginning in July 2010, all college campuses were required to implement these new provisions with reference to textbooks and specifically this problem.

New Provisions:

Provision 1 - ISBN's at Registration: All federal and state financial aid eligible colleges are now obligated to provide students with the ISBN numbers and retail prices for all required and recommended textbooks for each course, before and during the registration process.

Provision 2 - Rental Programs: All colleges are being encouraged to provide students with information about textbook rental programs that are available on campus. While there may be multiple programs out there, the college is only being encouraged to provide information about those that the college has a direct relationship with. There are also many private textbook rental programs available through the internet.

Provision 3 - Used Textbooks and Buy-Back Programs: Colleges are also being encouraged to provide information about the availability of used textbooks and textbook buy-back programs on campus. Again they are only providing information about the university sponsored or college bookstore approved programs that their campus offers. Many others exist, including Amazon.com.

Provision 4 - Other Alternatives: Every college is being encouraged to provide information about current and potential alternatives to high textbook prices. With electronic textbooks and other cost savings strategies becoming more readily available on campus, universities are trying to find ways to inform students and make these alternatives profitable.

Additional Suggestions: The HEOA also offered some suggestions that could help students and professors to find additional textbook savings.

Suggestion 1: It was suggested that the textbook manufacturers are being asked to let professors know the comparative pricing of alternative textbooks before or during the selection process, so that professors can elect to choose a lower cost textbook alternative for students if available. Previously, professors were not given any pricing information about the textbooks that were being recommended by the publishers for their courses. As expected, the recommended textbook was generally the newest and most expensive edition.

Suggestion 2: It has also been suggested that textbook publishers try to avoid minor revisions that cause a previously selected textbook edition to become obsolete, just because a few minor revisions have been made. It has been suggested that this practice has been taking good quality, 3 and 4-year old used textbooks out of the available textbook market. This practice has been growing more and more widespread in recent years as publishers are trying to enhance their revenue stream... at the direct cost to the student.

Summary:

Hopefully the steps taken by the HEOA and others that are coming from outside the campus community will help bring textbook expenses down and allow students to make college more affordable again. Even though these provisions and suggestions have been made public for all colleges that receive federal financial aid, I have not seen a dramatic change so far. My hope is that if more students and parents hear about these changes, the schools, bookstores and publishing houses will be forced to operate with our college students and their families best interests at heart. Only time will tell.

Please share this article with anyone that you believe can benefit from the textbook cost savings that will occur if these provisions and suggestions are properly utilized and enforced.

Keith Maderer is a financial expert, author, speaker and father of five. He has been a financial adviser in the Western New York for over 30 years. He is the owner of SENIOR Financial and Tax Associates and founder of the Maderer Foundation, a private scholarship program for area youth.

College Students and Loan Payback: Lending Agencies Make Profits Preying on Students and Parents

Student lending organizations and collection agencies make money various ways. One of the most profitable is to convince graduates, who have already borrowed to pay tuition and fees for four years, to take out further loans for advanced degrees.

The agencies defer interest payments on the original loans until the student graduates with his or her new degree. Then they add the amount of the interest deferred on the original loans with the interest deferred on the graduate school loans to the principle on both the first four years and the advanced degree to arrive at a massive amount of money owed by the graduate.

Jorge Was Such a Student

I sometimes write about a wonderful young man whose name was Jorge. He was the first of his family to attend college. To do so Jorge had to take out student loans. He could not get a job after his four years so a representative from a collection agency suggested he earn an advanced degree. Although the lending agency deferred his original loans, they accrued interest and, along with his new loans for graduate school, came to an extraordinary amount (over $150,000).

Jorge, as with most students, could not get a professional entry-level position after he earned his graduate degree. The pressure from collection agencies was so great that he felt he had no choice but to take his own life. (I continually counsel graduates in this situation that suicide is never an acceptable alternative.)

Student Loan Organizations Make Lots of Money Off These Unfortunate Students

Many students still cannot get jobs after graduate school, and neither the banks who loaned the students their money, nor the collection agencies are sympathetic to this situation. Quite frankly, this is a successful gambit of the student loan industry: Lend students lots of money, defer these loans for many years during which they earn lots of interest, and charge huge late fees and collection agency charges when the graduates cannot pay them back.

Parents Often Use Their Own Savings to Pay the Loans

If the student does not commit suicide (many lending agencies can collect insurance on the loan) the lending agency (including the Department of Education) passes the loan on to collection agencies who will put an excruciating amount of pressure on these hapless graduates. The unemployed graduates often have no choice but to appeal to their parents to help them out of their predicament. The parents, who are now preparing for their own retirement, are now forced to take out a mortgage or home equity loan. Then the student loan (in many cases in excess of $100,000) is now paid.

Think of what has just happened here. The lending companies and collection agencies have extended exorbitant amounts of debt to students who never had any chance of paying their loan back. When mom and dad pay back the debt with their own retirement savings and home equity loans, the agency makes huge profits on the current interest, deferred interest, collection fees, late fees and various other charges.

Politicians Also Make Money Off Student Loans

No wonder the lending agencies dole out so much PAC money to politicians. They need to keep bankruptcy, as an alternative, out of the picture. If the government passed a law that gave graduates the same right to declare bankruptcy as other citizens, a major form of revenue for the lending industry and politicians would be destroyed.

My point is that there is no excuse to refuse bankruptcy to any graduate who reaches such a point of destitution. When graduates take their own lives or parents lose their life assets and life savings to help their children out of this mountain of debt we must change the laws.

This article was created by J Roberts also known as Professor Roberts. He is a noted counselor to parents and students alike and is the author of the book "Colleges Behind Closed Doors: What You Need to Know (Long) Before You Go." He is an authority on the inner-workings of colleges, college preparation, selection, and finances. Visit him at http://www.ProfessorRoberts.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=J_Roberts
http://EzineArticles.com/?College-Students-and-Loan-Payback:-Lending-Agencies-Make-Profits-Preying-on-Students-and-Parents&id=6842766