In the rapidly evolving college textbook
market, one of the nation's largest publishers, Cengage Learning, announced
on Thursday that
it will start renting books to students later this year, at 40 to 70
percent of the sale price. Students who choose Cengage’s rental
option will get immediate access to the first chapter of the book electronically,
in e-book format, and will have a choice of shipping options for the
printed book. When the rental term -- 60, 90, or 130 days -- is over,
students can either return the textbook or purchase it. With the growing
competition from online used-book sales, digital texts and new Internet
textbook-rental businesses like Chegg and BookRenter, other publishers
and college bookstores are also edging toward rentals...
A college textbook publisher said Thursday it
would become the first to rent titles directly to students, another
option for students fed up with spending $100 or more to buy books
they have little use for after a semester. Stamford, Conn.-based Cengage
Learning said its rentals would cost 40% to 70% less than the suggested
retail price. Several hundred titles will be available starting in December,
with more to follow next July.
Students can already rent textbooks, usually second hand, through websites
such as Chegg.com and Bookrenter.com, but publishers are largely cut
out of that market. The publishers say a major reason their prices
sometimes reach three figures is that the initial sale is their only
chance to collect revenue...
New public, private and college-based programs
are targeting a grim and growing market: unemployed college graduates
who can’t afford to repay their student loans. This week, BridgeSpan
Financial, a start-up based in Washington, D.C., introduced SafeStart,
a product designed to protect borrowers from the risk of defaulting
on their loans. For an upfront payment of $40 to $60 per $1,000 of
student debt, SafeStart will provide an interest-free line of credit
that borrowers can use to repay federal student loans for up to five
years after graduation...
As legislation that includes portions of
President Obama's plan to improve college-completion rates makes its
way through Congress, some higher-education lobbyists are questioning
the role of state governments in distributing billions of dollars to
help meet that goal. The administration has proposed spending $2.5-billion
over five years for a College Access and Completion Fund as one way
to help colleges and states work toward the president's goal of the
United States' having the world's highest proportion of college graduates
by 2020...
For several years, federal policy makers
have been battling intensely over whether colleges discriminate in
their transfer of credit policies against students from institutions
that are accredited not by one of the six regional accrediting agencies,
but instead by what are known as "national" accreditors...It is relatively
rare, then, to find blatant, broad examples of discrimination on the
basis of institutional accreditation. Rare -- but not unheard of. And
one is unfolding right now in Wisconsin, where state officials have
(so far) decided not to let students at Northland International University
receive grants designed to help Wisconsin residents afford public and
private nonprofit colleges...
Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law Tuesday clamping
down on the marketing of credit cards on college campuses. Under the
law that becomes effective Jan.
1, credit card companies won’t be able to give out T-shirts,
gift cards or other freebies to entice students to sign up. Also, any
Illinois college or university that signs a deal agreeing to market
credit cards to students must provide financial education so students
understand the consequences of using credit cards...
