With the start of every new semester, students must suffer the expense of college textbooks if they wish to do well in their classes. In the Jan. 20 edition of the Nicholls Worth, staff writer Justin Martin compared the prices of local and online textbook vendors. Currently, the cheapest choice for students is renting from Textbook Rentals Incorporated (TRI), a private textbook rental shop located on Goode Street in Thibodaux. The cross-section of books listed in Martin’s article still cost more than $250 at TRI, which is only $75 cheaper than buying textbooks through the online bookseller, Amazon.com. The University should consider giving students a cheaper option for obtaining academic texts. Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond offers students a much cheaper alternative to leasing books from private book rentals. Under SLU’s current textbook policies, students pay $25 to rent texts for each academic course they are enrolled in through the university, which makes the price of attending college significantly more affordable for SLU students, especially for those with heavier course loads. Instructors may select a maximum of two textbooks per course and must use texts from between a year and half to four years, depending on how often the course is taught. Students buy workbooks and other seasonal materials, like tax manuals, separately.

The textbook rental program is incredibly popular at Southeastern. There are, of course, some drawbacks to the program. Some professors resent the restrictions the rental system sets on their ability to choose course readings. Private bookstore owners see the rental system as a government owned monopoly that limits free enterprise. Yet, students still gets much more academic bang for their buck with the university rental system. In a time when education is more important in determining success than ever before, the cheaper college is the better, as long as the quality of education is not sacrificed. If Nicholls adopted a textbook rental system, the cost of learning would decrease and educational opportunity would increase.