College tuition already costs an arm and a leg on its own, but when you add in the expenses, well, that’s when it starts to get beyond ridiculous. Textbooks alone can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to close to a grand.

For years, people have complained–students and compassionately aware professors alike–but there has been no improvement in the area of textbook prices. Some colleges and universities encourage using online services like e-Reserve while others try to cut down on the frequency a text changes for a course.

Students are forgoing using their campus bookstores, instead opting to search online at places like Half.com for books. However, that really does little to help alleviate the cost as a whole.

Now publishers are stepping in. According to Trend Hunter, textbook companies from around the world are working with school administrations to create the best possible approach the eliminating high prices or the cost of textbooks entirely.

The U.S.-based company Freeload Press has offered a program to colleges where they will provide free copies of e-textbooks in exchange for being allowed to publish advertisements at the end of each chapter. That way, they make their money off of people who can afford it (i.e. the people paying to place the ads) instead of students. But for those old-fashioned students out there, they can send in a check for 30 bucks, which covers the bare minimum of the printing costs, and order their own copy.

For more on these wondrous free textbook programs, click here.

Image: Campus Text

Tags: college fees, textbooks, textbook prices, free textbooks, publishing, Freeload Press, Trend Hunter, free books

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