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When he started college this fall, Nelson McKinely braced himself for tuition bills and travel expenses. But the cost of textbooks came as a shock to him.

The Frederick Community College freshman estimates he spent close to $600 on six textbooks in his first semester in college. For McKinley, who lives at home, hoping to save money and transfer to a four-year school, that is just too much.

"It's ridiculous. It's almost as much as my classes," he said.

The cost of college textbooks is not a new problem for students in Frederick County, but it is becoming a bigger burden as students struggle to pay for college in a recession.

According to a 2008 report by the National Association of College Stores, college students on average spend $702 for course materials.

Frederick County colleges recognize the problem and some have started exploring new initiatives — from e-textbooks to book rentals and free textbook programs — that could offer some relief. But for now those efforts are limited and it is unclear if they could make a real difference for all students.

Frederick Community College has launched a pilot book rental program, which allows students to pay half price for textbooks they will only use for one semester.

The rental program took off this fall for textbooks used in two of the most popular classes at the college – an introductory psychology book, which sells for $117.25, and an introduction to sociology book, which costs $102.

The program offers better returns to students than if they sell back used textbooks and allows them to take rented textbooks home, said Fred Hockennerry, director of bookstore services at the college. It also allows the bookstore to lock in the initial price for the textbooks, he said.

So far the initiative has been popular, and almost all the textbooks available though the program have been rented out, Hockenberry said.

Community college officials hope to expand the program in the future, but that will require some work. The college has to pay upfront to get the rental textbooks and it can take time for the program to pay off for the college. Instructors also have to commit to using the same books over a longer period of time, rather than asking students to purchase new textbook editions.

"It's a very collaborative effort that involves the entire campus," Hockenberry said.

The community college is also experimenting with electronic textbooks, which tend to be cheaper than paper books. Unlike textbook rentals, the e-textbooks have not really yet taken off. The initiative started on a small scale late in the semester, which may have contributed to lower interest, Hockenberry said. In addition, many students may not have computer and Internet access to use the new digital textbooks, he noted.

"Nationally, e-textbooks don't compare in sales to other textbooks," he said. "There is a certain future for it and I can see a day coming when more and more students will be getting (e-textbooks)."

Officials at Mount St. Mary's University are also looking to lower the cost of textbooks, but they are moving in a different direction.

For the first time this spring, the college will offer free textbooks to all students who transfer in with an associate's degree. The pilot program aims to attract more community college students, and college officials hope to use it as an incentive to recruit at least 50 more students by fall 2010, said David Rehm, Mount St. Mary's dean of academic affairs.

The initiative is part of broader efforts to make textbooks more affordable for all students at the college, Rehm said.

"We have been talking about the problem with the high cost of textbooks for the last few years," Rehm said. "We are concerned with the hidden cost of going to college."

For now, officials are looking at the way colleges nationwide are dealing with that problem. They are searching for ways to finance free textbook initiatives on a larger scale and even checking with colleges which have started using the Kindle electronic readers to offer textbooks in digital format.

"This is just the beginning," Rehm said. "We are working on it. ... But there is not single magic bullet."

E-mail Margarita Raycheva at mraycheva@gazette.net.