It’s all about cutting costs — for textbook publishers and college students

New or Modified Models That Lower Purchase Prices

• PR Web: Pearson and indiCo Partner to Bring Students More Affordable Textbooks in Campus Stores — “Today, Pearson and indiCo announced a new partnership to expand Pearson’s recently announced textbook rental program to up to 1,500 independent campus bookstores. Beginning this fall, 50 popular Pearson titles will be available via a rental-only model, which will provide students with affordable access to the selected titles…” (For more on Pearson’s rental-only plans, read “Pearson and Chegg Partner on Exclusive Rentals“)
• The Tufts Daily: New Student-Run Textbook Exchange Initiative to Begin in Fall 2017 — “A new student-run textbook exchange will start in September, according to Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Philip Miller . . . According to Miller, a first-year, this initiative seeks to create a physical location for the existing textbook exchange schemes online. ‘There is already an Excel document floating around online and a Facebook group, but we’re trying to create a place on campus that students can go to drop off and pick up new books,’ Miller said…”

Open Educational Resources/Open-Source Textbooks

• Inside Higher Ed: A New Channel for OER — “Open educational resources provider Lumen Learning has a new partner in its effort to get more faculty members to use alternatives to commercial textbooks: the college bookstore. Lumen, a start-up based in Portland, Ore., said on Monday that it had teamed up with Follett, creating a new channel for its course content to reach more faculty members…”
• Quartz Media: States Are Moving to Cut College Costs by Introducing Open-Source Textbooks — “Every cost associated with higher learning has steadily increased over the past decade, but none more so than college textbooks. While tuition increased by 63% between 2006 and 2016, and housing costs increased by 50%, the cost of textbooks went up by 88%, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics…”

Bad News for Industry Jobs

• Boston Business Journal: Houghton Mifflin Plans to Cut Hundreds of Employees — “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co., the Boston-based education publisher facing financial headwinds, said it plans to cut as much as 10 percent of its workforce in effort to save money, according to regulatory filing…”