Posted on 09/08/2009 7:42:06 PM PDT by BGHater
College students frequently complain about the high cost of textbooks, and they have a point. As the top chart above shows, the cost of college textbooks (BLS category "educational books and supplies") has risen much higher than the overall CPI since 1978, almost 7% annually on average for textbooks versus less than 4% for all goods and services. Although not quite as high as the average annual inflation rate for college tuition (almost 8%), textbook prices have increased faster than even the cost of medical care (6%).
Here’s a new take on the never-ending public school crisis. IMHO, most textbooks are purchased on the basis of the publishers’ campaign contributions rather than scholastic merit.
Someone technologically savvy should sell textbooks on Kindle. Bonus: No heavy-ass backpacks!
So, can you sell back an e-textbook at the end of the semester?
Wonder if you can sell your access...
You would think these global warming freaks that write text books would be all about digital delivery. Quit cutting the forests down.
I think elementary school textbooks are chosen based on which ones include the copies already made. Usually in the form of “workbooks” and other workbooks for homework.
$515 this semester for my daughters books. Which included two used ones for 80% retail. Highway robbery.
Our school has tablet computers for every student...some have e-books...where available...no savings in price. :(
Priceless. Truly LMAO.
Welcome to reality, college students. Water is wet, fire burns, the dog returns to his vomit. And the fool's finger goes wabbling back to the fire.
/johnny
The real racket is in the newer editions students are forced to buy. I have a well-known heavy calculus book I keep around as a reference. It’s version 8, and there is one version after it. Now, by the end of the 1800s, the calculus you see in an undergrad class was pretty much so fleshed out. I would think we could quit incrementing version numbers and charging students for new undergrad math books. I picked up version 8, by the way for $1.50. Version 9 is somewhere south of $90.
Going electronic won’t change the price. Textbooks are expensive because the industry consolidated, there’s not very little competition, lack of competition means they can charge whatever they want.
I swear they change the way they teach math in public schools every few years in order to sell more text books.
This is one of the reasons for the long-awaited Apple tablet touchscreen computer. Imagine putting your textbooks in e-book form into such a device....
This was front page news on our university paper this week. At the college level, book prices are astronomical and students are all for etextbooks. I routinely have to check prices before I choose them for class because the prices just seem out of whack. I’m all for making a profit, but there’s something insane about the textbook business. Plus, with textbooks, sometimes they’ll make a few minor changes then change the whole edition, which means a new book sometimes each year. It just isn’t necessary.
I don’t teach to the book. I want students to have the info in the book and that doesn’t always mean they need a new edition. I let my students buy older, used editions if I think they are still relevant.
Let’s see- at a Community College, the textbooks cost you $1,000, but you are only maybe paying 300.00 for tuition.
How about -the textbooks at a community college cost you 1,000 BUT my tax dollars are subsidizing your higher education. In fact, your education costs a lot more then 300.00 a semester, but everyone is paying for it.
And smart college student, make sure if you are using a book that goes for two semesters (many foreign language, science, and math books)you don’t buy the ebook that expires after 180 days.
I manage a college store,and this comes up every fall so I am tired of ranting about it. The cause of the price increases is very plain-two large companies, Pearson and Cengage,, have merged, bought out, whatever, multiple publishers,(remember - Houghton Mifflin, MacMillan, Irwin, Freeman, Glencoe, Appleton-Century Crofts, William C Brown, Wadsworth,Allyn and Bacon?) creating a highly oligarchic industry structure. We know prices increase in such a model. There are a few other players- McGraw Hill and Wiley, but instead of competing on price they just keep raising theirs also.
In our free market, students can-and do find books cheaper, and that is fine. E-books are a growing but still relatively small percent of the market. What we are seeing is publishers now actually competing against Bookstores they sell to- Cengage has a site that sells direct to students at about a 4% saving over Bookstore prices-cutting out the middleman. Bookstores are trying to fight back with rental programs, the problem is to be fiscally sound faculty have to agree to use the same book for four terms-but try telling that to faculty, they yell about academic freedom. New laws are kicking in next July which require all Colleges to post their book lists (with ISBNS), (we’ve been posting ours for years)so students can shop around-the increased competition will probably at least slow the price increases.
I better quit, I’ll bore everyone all night, and tomorrow is the second day of classes-another 12 hour day coming (13 1/2 with the commute)listening to kid’s and parents-complaining about prices.
PS - that federal law applies only to Colleges that take financial aid money of any type, so I guess the Grove Cities and Hillsdales will be exempt. God bless them for their wisdom.
My daughter spent $4 for her college class biology book. It was one edition out of date.
Judging from my daughter’s experience, if you buy your textbooks at the beginning of the semester and sell them at the end of the semester, your net cost is less than the cost of the e-textbooks.
FWIW. YMMV.
But I used my basic Physics and Calculus textbooks as references through out my college career ... and still have them. In fact, I still have almost all of my science and engineering texts.
Just looking ...
For example: "Optics" (Hecht and Zajac) set me back the princely sum of $36.95 ... 'way back when; "Calculus with Analytic Geometry" (Swokowski) went for $49.95. If my copies of them had disappeared after the course was over I'd have been hosed.
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