Students can save money on textbooks, thanks to price matching offered by many campus bookstores, including the Otterbein Bookstore.
Students can get a textbook from the Otterbein Bookstore at the same price as either Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a local campus competitor upon providing a copy of a recent ad.
For students who have already bought their textbooks through any of the specified retailers, the Otterbein Bookstore can provide a refund for the price difference, as long as the transaction was within the last seven days and the student provides the original receipt.
The price match must be transacted in person at the bookstore and can save students a lot of money.
“That’ll be good for next semester,” said Jada Cherry, a first-year nursing major. “I was kind of in a rush to get my textbooks, so I just got them off the bookstore [website]...I think I spent $350.”
Kathleen Darnell has worked at the Otterbein Bookstore as a store manager and is currently a market leader for campus retailer Follett Higher Education. According to Darnell, the cost of books can vary significantly, especially depending on majors.
“We have custom nursing bundles that are over $900, but that covers an entire year of textbooks. But you can get a book as cheap as $4, so it’s a huge range...it just depends on the content,” Darnell said.
With the average textbook costing between $100-$150 and some hard copy books costing as much as $400, students spent an average of $339-$600 for books and supplies in the 2021-2022 school year, according to a 2023 report from the Education Data Initiative.
However, Otterbein’s student government has made attempts in the past to make class textbooks accessible and affordable for students, including the implementation of Open Education Resources (OER), through some classes still require textbooks.
“We have a lot of more students that are buying digital versus physical books...” Darnell said. “Some professors are moving to OER but not a whole lot.”
To see the full details of Otterbein Bookstore’s price matching, click here.
