COLLEGE STUDENTS AGONIZING OVER NEW, USED BOOK PRICES.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

Over coffee in crowded student unions, at lunchtime forums and inside classrooms, San Fernando Valley college students are grumbling about the high cost of textbooks.

While students have always chafed at the exorbitant price of books, their complaints have taken on a new edge as the state's public colleges and universities raise fees and trim classes to stave off state budget cuts.

Looking to stretch their already-thin dollars, students are scrambling to cut back wherever they can - even it means doing without textbooks, which can average $736 a year at four-year universities.

``I haven't bought any textbooks,'' said Sean Henry, a 24-year-old music major from Santa Clarita who attends Valley College. ``I usually get by with the textbooks in the library. I have to (photocopy) certain chapters, or I find a friend who's had the class before.''

Mission College student Jorge Valles said most of his friends share books; even used textbooks are too expensive to purchase.

``We have groups of friends who have taken the class before. We just can't afford it.''

According to the National Association of College Stores, the cost of the average new textbook in fall 2000 was $66.08. Used books are a little cheaper, but not by much: $51.16. But those numbers add up when students buy books and course materials for their classes.

``Fees at our university run around $1,000 per semester for full-time students, but students are prepared to spend half that much again on books,'' John Mason, associate vice president for faculty affairs at California State University, Northridge.

Amy Berger, assistant director of CSUN's Matador Bookstore, said she'd seen students bring a load of books to the checkout line, decide they can't afford them all and ``go see if they can borrow money from somebody.

``Instead of buying all their books in January, they wait until they absolutely have to buy it, but if they wait until February or March, we've started returning the (unsold) books, and we end up special ordering for the students,'' she said.

Students on tight budgets borrow books from friends, buy used books and sell them when they're no longer needed.

Valley College student Mari-Louise Kerimian said her textbooks often cost as much as $300 per semester. She saves money by purchasing used books.

``If a used book is in good condition, I'll get those,'' said the 18-year-old communications major from North Hollywood.

Patrick Seery, another Valley College student, groused that many textbooks come with CD-ROMs of dubious value that inflate the price.

``I think they throw in a little make-shift CD just so they can charge us a little more,'' said the 20-year-old Granada Hills man, noting that the one that came with his history textbook featured short stories that didn't help him understand the subject any better.

Textbooks have always been more expensive than novels, but technological improvements such as complex, four-color graphics and CD-ROMs have increased costs, said Judith Platt, director of communications and public affairs for the Association of American Publishers, the national trade organization of the book publishing industry.

Even so, for every $1 spent on textbooks, the publisher's after-tax profit amounts to only 7.1 cents, she said. Nationwide, the textbook and course materials market is estimated at $7.1 billion.

``I think some of the anger about the cost of textbooks is displaced anger over the cost of tuition,'' Platt said. ``You now have to go into debt extraordinarily to send a kid to college, and then a couple hundred dollars every semester for textbooks is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.''

The increased inclusion of CD-ROMs with textbooks is an effort to sell new textbooks, said Larry Kraus, former Pierce College bookstore manager and now the college's enterprise manager, in charge of searching for business opportunities for the campus.

Textbooks become used after the first semester, and after that, generates no new revenue for the publisher or the author.

Another trend is to bundle the textbook with a workbook. The student fills in the workbook as part of the class, rendering both it and the textbook useless for the used book market, Kraus said.

Textbooks also are expensive because they are printed in short edition runs and have more overhead costs - extensive editing, special binding that can stand up to student abuse - than the average novel, he said.

Sensitive to textbook costs, college officials strive to keep prices reasonable.

In the Los Angeles Community College District, which includes the Valley's three community colleges, campus bookstores are limited in how much more over wholesale costs they can charge. Currently, that's about 38.3 percent, said Pierce bookstore manager Greg Osweiler.

Even college professors are paying a lot more attention to the price of textbooks, said Mason, who teaches a course on poet Walt Whitman.

His old, worn copy of ``Leaves of Grass'' still has the $7.95 price sticker attached. His students' copies cost $18.75.

``I'm embarrassed for them to see the cost on my copy. It's the same book, the same plates; they're not having to do anything except reprint it.''

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Photo:

Rotem Sabag, 19, and Jessica Ramos, 18, shop for books at the Pierce College bookstore Thursday morning.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer