College Textbook Prices Have Risen 1,041 Percent Since 1977

NBC News ^ | 08/06/2015 | BEN POPKEN

[Kid Shelleen]

Students hitting the college bookstore this fall will get a stark lesson in economics before they've cracked open their first chapter. Textbook prices are soaring. Some experts say it's because they're sold like drugs.

According to NBC's review of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, textbook prices have risen over three times the rate of inflation from January 1977 to June 2015, a 1,041 percent increase.

"They've been able to keep raising prices because students are 'captive consumers.' They have to buy whatever books they're assigned," said Nicole Allen, a spokeswoman for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

[P-Marlowe]

The candy bars at Vons are the small ones. They are the 1 oz size and the price is $1.29. When I was a kid they were 5 cents for the one ounce candy bar. That was the deposit on a large coke bottle. I could get a candy bar for every 24 ounce bottle I redeemed and a candy bar for every two 12 ounce bottles. They didn’t have 16 and 32 back then.

I generally pay $5 for a 4 ounce premium bag of 1/4 ounce Ghirardelli dark chocolate squares. That’s $1.25 per ounce.

[FredZarguna]

Ghirardelli squares are not considered a premium candy bar. They're considered specialty candies, which did not exist in mass markets in 1975.

A premium candy bar is a brand name mass market candy that meets certain specs, like a Hershey Bar or a Snickers. A 1.55 oz Hershey Bar averages between 0.89 and 0.99 cents at Walmart to $1.29 in a grocery store. Even if you buy them in an expensive grocery store, they have not increased in price much more than ordinary inflation; they aren't anywhere near the price increase of either tuition or text books.