Why Do Textbooks Cost So Much?

[StitchInTime]

<p>Via [Minding</a> the Campus](<a href=“http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2008/04/youve_just_started_your_freshm.html]Minding”>http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2008/04/youve_just_started_your_freshm.html):</p>

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Why Do Textbooks Cost So Much?
By Charlotte Allen</p>

<p>You’ve just started your freshman year in college, so one of your first stops is the campus bookstore to pick up your textbooks. You signed up for Econ 101, where your professor has assigned one of the top-selling basic textbooks in the field: Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw’s 936-page Principles of Economics (South-Western/Thomson), now in its fourth edition. The price: $175.95, or if you want to throw in a study guide to help you ace the course, $209.90…</p>

<p>… A General Accounting Office report in 2005 noted that textbook prices rose 186 percent in the U.S. from 1986 to 2004, compared to only a 3 percent rise in other prices over the same period and a 7 percent rise in average college tuition and fees. The seemingly out-of-control price increases have prompted laws in six states and pending bills in at least four others - plus a measure passed by the House of Representatives on Feb. 7 - that aim to regulate the way in which textbooks are marketed so as to lower costs to students…</p>

<p>…Other enterprising students, and even a few commercial entities, have discovered that many popular textbooks sell for less - sometimes a lot less - in licensed versions in foreign countries; they re-import the international editions from abroad and sell them for considerably less than their U.S. prices to classmates and other willing buyers. Of course, such maneuvers can violate U.S. trademark laws and subject sellers to liability for damages, warns James Grimmelman, professor of intellectual property law at New York Law School. “The [trademark] law basically enables price discrimination,” says Grimmelman. </p>

<p>That may be, but the pressure on textbook prices by the combined strategies of enterprising students and used-book websites is likely in the long run to bring those prices down without government intervention. Eventually some publisher, major or minor, will figure out ways to give students and their professors exactly what they need for far less money - and at that point the textbook market will move quickly to correct itself, all by itself.

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[paying3tuitions]

<p>What bothered me was the professors who had us buy a book, then assigned only one chapter – the chapter they had contributed.</p>

[janetlover]

<p>i wonder why college books are more expensive than high school books. even some of our ap books are not this expensive…</p>

[originaloog]

<p>Our son has typically paid less than a $100/semester for books since first semester frosh year. How? He has bought used, prior edition books at a small fraction of new and even used same editions. He has bought foreign edition texts and never used the college bookstore.</p>

<p>The big premium for current editions is largely a scam by text book publishers to maximize profits. Earlier editions usually have identical content or essentially identical content. Even problem sets are typically the same with changes amounting to merely changing the number order of the individual problems. Our son was assigned an 8th edition multivariable calc text, bought an identical 2nd edition for about $5 + shipping. </p>

<p>Finally many profs are relying less on texts than in our day. It is not unusual for our son’s instructors to have lecture notes on line, use journal articles and use the assigned text sporatically throughout the term.</p>

<p>He is due to graduate next month Magna Cum Laud so his parsimonious ways seemed to have worked out just fine.</p>

[2VU0609]

<p>Since I began teaching, textbooks have moved from a 3 year cycle for an edition to a 2 year cycle. My discipline does have frequent content changes in some topic areas, so I think that is part of this trend. However, as more and more books compete based on their online content with supplements, access to Excel templates, homework manager programs, etc., the publishers look to recover their high fixed costs for these “add ons” through the price of the textbook. The charges they make for access to automated homework programs are more reasonable - from $15 to $28 per semester. </p>

<p>Also, competition has been reduced over the last 20 years as the dominant publishers have acquired some of the smaller ones. I heavily utilize the texts I adopt and students are expected to bring them to class for each meeting. However, in some disciplines, e-books are becoming more widely available and are practical for disciplines where the text is primarily used for reading such as history, political science, etc.</p>

<p>I agree with the original post. It is a serious problem, particularly for students at a community college where the price of textbooks can approach 40% or so of tuition.</p>