Students and Textbook Spending

Recently, an interesting study was performed with students Kalamazoo College in regards to textbooks, and textbook spending. The focus points of the study included how much students spent on their textbooks for one quarter, different markets from which students purchased their books, and satisfaction with these markets. The researchers studied a random sample of students from every grade at the school. 

Results of this study were quite interesting: 91.18% of students spent money on books in some way. Of the 91.18% that spent money on books, 83.87% purchased at least one book from the Kalamazoo College Bookstore. Here, students spent an average of $131.37. Also, 70.97% of those who spent money on books also used an online retailer. Students who used the internet to purchase books only spent $98.95 on books. That is an average savings of $32.72. Students were also asked to rank their satisfaction with the markets that they purchased from on a 1-10 scale, 1 being the lowest, and 10 being the highest. For students who used the K College Bookstore, the average satisfaction was a lousy 6.17, whereas the online retailers received a higher score of 7.92. 

Essentially, the simple conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that students, now more than ever, are using the internet to purchase textbooks for school. Using the internet has no doubt saved countless students money, and with the ever-rising tuition costs, students are looking to save every penny that they can.