From the Ashford Blackboard site.

 "Starting October 1, 2009, students will be able to purchase electronic textbooks online! Students can download textbooks for many of their courses straight to their computer, and eliminate the shipping costs associated with print versions of the same book. Offering electronic books is one more way that Ashford University is striving to make higher education more affordable and accessible."

I wonder if they are going to discount the cost of the books at all as they only mention eliminating the shipping costs. Hmmm...

My guess is probably not.  But that aside, having a searchable electronic book will save you tons of time.  That in of itself is worth something.

lithoguy:

I wonder if they are going to discount the cost of the books at all as they only mention eliminating the shipping costs. Hmmm...

Heh heh, I think you found their angle here.

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

Well, since today is Day One of Ashford offering their e-Book option for classes, I thought I would check out the pricing out of curiosity. I looked up BUS 620, Managerial Marketing as that would be my next class, and the regular book price is $ 156.94 plus whatever shipping would be vs. the e-Book price of $ 72.25. I was pleasantly surprised at the price reduction. Of course, you can probably do better, price wise, by finding a slightly used copy of this book on Amazon, eBay, Half or whatever online site offers it, but it was nice to see that the digital format is less than half the price of the usual new book price.

Rich

I suppose half price is better than no discount, but $72.25 for a book they don't even have to print is still insultingly exploitative.

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

I totally agree. It was surprised that they even offered a discount at all.

Rich

I agree with you Steve, but then that's pretty much true with every single textbook company I've seen.  I was at a friends house last night and he was telling me about his wife's ability to earn her masters without a textbook from the University of Texas at Arlington.  He said they spent $800 her first semester on books and she only ended up opening a couple of them for a couple of different assignments and other than that never used them.  When she tried to sell them they'd give her around $20 for an $80 book so she quit buying them and would occasionally borrow a friends for the night if it was absolutely needed.  I've had similar experiences (though I always needed my own books) and the thing that absolutely killed me was half the time by the time the class ended 6 weeks later my book was no longer the "current" edition and they wouldn't give anything for them.  Now that's a kicker.

I've had decent good luck checking books for class out of the library, and just keeping on renewing them until the class is done.  It costs nothing, my favorite price!

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

Hi, Its nice to hear this, keep on posting