Schools

Study: ECC Offers Nation's Best Deal on Textbooks

School placed first among 1,500 institutions for affordability

Technology has helped Essex County College achieve the number one ranking for the affordability of its textbooks, according to a recent survey of colleges and universities across the United States.

“We’ve been offering e-books since the fall 2012 semester,” said Marva Rudder, director of the college’s  bookstore. The e-books are available for classes offered every semester and make up about 10 percent of all books sold at ECC, Rudder also said.

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The study, released in March by Akademos, ranked the affordability of texts sold at 1,500 schools, including  Rutgers-Newark, which landed at 424 on the list. Another Newark school, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, was not ranked.

It’s not uncommon for college students to pay a few hundred dollars for a textbook that will only be used for one class lasting just a few months. Nationwide, students on average will each drop more than $1,000 a year at their campus bookstore.

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College textbook prices have risen by more than 800 percent since 1978, nearly three times the rate of inflation and greater than the rise in the cost of college tuition, housing or medical services, according to another study.


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