A ritual at the start of each school year is the purchase of the required texts for each students’ courses. That process can be exciting, but it can also come with a very hefty price tag.
According to Mr. Cataldo, Kent’s CFO and Associate Head of School, the Kent School store has been operated by a third contractor called Higher Learning Supply Company in MA for the past three years. This company has a core business of running bookstores for independent schools, including Hotchkiss, Choate, and St. Paul’s. When they reached out to Mr. Cataldo, Kent decided to leave the responsibility to them. “The school store was run by Kent employees before, but it is really hard for us to staff a school store and concentrate on the cost of inventory. Our school store is meant to be more of a service, something that benefits students. We are never looking to earn a profit on it, so letting a third party run it could be a better choice because they are better positioned and entirely focused on such business,” Mr. Cataldo said.
Higher Learning Supply Company manages all of the expenses and Kent only incurs cost associated with physical space, such as electricity. Everything in the school store and the front desk employees are from this company. “Kent only offers a space,” Mr. Cataldo concluded.
In every student’s budget, textbook expenses have always been a large part, especially because students have to constantly purchase different books each school year. Looking at various classes, the average cost per student of textbooks a year is around five hundred dollars. “The shipping cost, the publisher, and the actual sale of the book are all added to sell these textbooks, which made them very expensive,” Mr. Cataldo explained.
Textbook prices for different subjects are quite different as well. Dr. MacNeil, Kent’s Academic Dean, illustrated the reason behind this phenomenon: “Textbooks for English are usually cheap paperbacks; however, for science, there’s a lot of intellectual capital that goes into writing these textbooks, and the writers who contributed have to be paid. Over time, as books go through more and more editions, they gain more respect and the price thus goes up.”
To find less expensive ways of buying their books, students often turn to different platforms such as Amazon instead of Kent school Store. “It is important to provide options,” Mr. Cataldo said, “The online school store can allow students to purchase textbooks ahead of time and they will be delivered to Kent, which is more efficient and effective. However, if a student ordered on other platforms, it could be cheaper, but you cannot make sure if this textbook is the right one or the right version selected by your teacher.”
Mr. Cataldo proposed that Kent should provide other approaches that could enable students to buy their textbooks more economically. For example, using digital resources, renting books, or reselling them at the end of each school year are potential resolutions. Mr. Cataldo promised: “Through time, I believe Kent will make the transition to ways that will minimize the cost of textbooks.”
