Sara C. Tobias / Chief Photographer / st939605@ohiou.edu

A line of students wait to buy Fall Quarter textbooks at Specialty Bookstore.  Students can now buy digital textbooks at half price.

The Ohio Board of Regents is offering students at the state’s public schools electronic textbooks at half the price of print versions.

When students order digital textbooks through the University System of Ohio Web site, textbooks.uso.edu, they receive an extra 10 percent off the regular discount of 50 to 55 percent.

Chancellor Eric Fingerhut said the high price of textbooks deters students from going to college. Fingerhut wants to increase statewide enrollment to 230,000 by 2017.

Fingerhut admitted there are some downsides to the use of electronic books, including not being able to sell them back.

“I don’t think it’s the solution for everybody,” he said. “You don’t get to sell them back, but you didn’t pay as much money up front.”

Although the National Association of College Stores in Oberlin said in a news release that college book stores are the safest and most convenient place to buy books, Toby Weisend, manager of Specialty Books, said he didn’t have a strong opinion about electronic textbooks.

“I don’t see it affecting (business) one way or another,” he said, adding he saw both positives and negatives to the use of digital textbooks.

Weisend said that 20 to 30 percent of students opt for the digital textbook when available.

Freshman Leslie Godec said she liked the idea of saving money by buying digital books, but, because she is dyslexic, she would rather have a book in front of her and be able to highlight important passages.

“Then again, if you could print it out … I guess there are pros and cons,” she said.

Sophomore Leah Lyon also said she liked being able to highlight, but rarely does because it decreases the amount of money she could earn by selling back books.

The Ohio Board of Regents also plans to cut down on textbook costs for students by offering cash prizes to faculty members who work hard to choose inexpensive materials and by offering grants to professors to write books. Those books would be owned by the state and sold to students for the cost of publishing, without additional costs.