Why do college text books cost so much

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Ian Anderson, Aug 21, 2009.

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  1. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    I just enrolled for another DL geology course. The course tuition is $78.00. The required text book is over $114.00 but I managed to find on line for $76.00. Previous editions of this textbook sell for as little as a few dollars. There are equally good books on the same subject in my local book stores for $25 to $35.

    Do colleges sell books to help their overall budget?

    Students protest increasing college fees but not the price of text books.

    [When I attended CSUDH they had a special library, comprising all the current text books, available for students to use - but no loans.]
     
  2. mattbrent

    mattbrent Well-Known Member

    It's not just college textbooks. I've had to order books for my high school classes for the past few years. They've ranged anywhere from $75 to $140 each! And, while you might not have to pay this, when the school orders books, we've had to pay several thousand dollars in shipping costs. It's ridiculous.

    For my college textbooks I've always used half.com. After the classes are done, I usually resell the books, and sometimes I even turn a profit.

    -Matt
     
  3. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    There is a huge markup by the publisher and another smaller markup by the bookstore. I have authored one book and I am friends with a number of prominent authors in my field (instructional technology and e-Learning). Authors only make a few dollars per book.
     
  4. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    >>

    I used to think the worst investment was a car, that the depreciation was too fast and too great. Not any more. It's text books!
    My current A&P text book was $333.00 That's for the "new" edition, because I'm sure science has changed too much to use the previous edition (which is on evay for $17) When I emailed the instructor asking about using the previous edition, he said no way. (my harvard instructors gave us multiple edition options) So, what can a person do?
     
  5. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

     
  6. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    It's simply basic supply and demand economics. They (the publishers) have a captive market and you (the student) will pay whatever they tell you to.
     
  7. ProfTim

    ProfTim Member

    Everyone has their hand in the till for these textbooks and that's why they are so expensive. One of my student's rents her textbooks. I don't remember the site where she gets them but they include a postage paid return label. You can rent them for a month, quarter, semester, etc. The cost was much lower than what she would pay for these at our bookstores.

    Someone mentioned half.com. I have also used abebooks.com. Generally I find some good bargains at that site as well.
     
  8. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    My suggestion is not to buy the text. If there are old editions available for a few bucks, buy one of them. (Geology doesn't change that fast.) The biggest danger with that plan is if you are going to be assigned exercises from the text. That's where changes are often made from edition to edition. If you are in contact with any other students, see if one of them will make a photocopy of the current exercises for you.

    When I took the introductory class for geology majors at CCSF (just for personal interest), I encountered the same kind of sticker-shock. So I snooped around the local used-book stores and while I couldn't find a used copy of the precise text the class was using, there were plenty of other introductory geology texts being sold for next to nothing. (There's very little resale value for old editions of textbooks.) So I bought one of the more academic looking texts for a couple of dollars, after making sure that it covered all the topics in our syllabus. It worked great and I ultimately got an A.
     
  9. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    I looked into renting, but found international edition (IE) books to be cheaper, or at least as much as the rental fees. I usually buy from abebooks.com, half.com or anywhere else that has the text the cheapest.

    When I was attending Cal Coast U, I rented my books for $20.00 each. It was very efficient. Good program.

    Abner
     
  10. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Similarly, I have an objection to the Math texts that we're told to buy. Algebra, Calculus, etc. do not change at all. I'm sure there is a very good old text that could be used over and over for years, allowing Instructors to give students a cost break by selling/buying the same books over and over. I can only imagine that Instructors are told to order new texts.

    I know enough about the nastiness of big business so that I assume that somone at the university is making money on this kind of thing. Do publishing reps show up and take department heads out to lunch, etc, etc? Who decides which text to use? Probably not the Instructor. Probably the Dept. Head. Instructors! Tell me how this works in your school.
     
  11. Go_Fishy

    Go_Fishy New Member

    An issue with many academic books is of course that the sales numbers are relatively low relative to the amount of work that goes into a book. This can't be the whole story though, seeing that textbooks in other countries tend to be much cheaper than in the US.
     
  12. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    When I took the calculus sequence at CCSF (for personal interest) we used Swokowski, a standard textbook. The instructor stressed that we had to have the current edition, no exceptions. Unfortunately, new copies are apparently printed on gold leaf, judging from the price.

    So once again, I bought a perfectly fine older edition for a couple of bucks. The only significant difference between editions is that they change the problem sets at the ends of the chapters. We were assigned the problem sets as homework, so I borrowed a classmate's copy of the current edition and photocopied the problem sets for all the chapters we were going to cover that semester. (It helped that it was a B&M class.) Then the only thing I had to do was make sure that my book had a book cover so that the instructor wouldn't see that its cover was the wrong color. (I think that he probably knew but didn't particularly care.)

    Again, it worked fine at a fraction of the cost.
    I'd be curious to hear about that too. I does kind of seem like a racket.
     
  13. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    >>

    At my CC, we have total autonomy over which texts we use. In fact, my chair never even asks about it. I have to let him know/let bookstore mgr know if I want a new book. The only thing the publisher does is offer to send us free copies of any new books we want. I do review books from time to time, but rarely change. One thing that drives revisions, is that it is hard for the book stores to stock back-editions, and many of the students get financial aid vouchers- so they need to buy their books from the books store or pay out of pocket. So, for that reason, we do update.
    I'm just thankful that my key texts don't revise often- honest to goodness- that's a pain too. As an instructor, you have pages marked, questions tagged, highlights, etc and then all the page numbers change with new editions!
     
  14. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    The expensive textbooks are printed for expensive sale in the United States. Duplicate inexpensive textbooks are manufactured for countries outside of the U.S., such as India, etc. Those duplicate-inexpensive textbooks aren't supposed to be sold in the U.S., but with the advent of the internet, you can purchase them for pennies on the dollar -- or it used to be that way.
     
  15. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    My first order was rejecrted because the book was sold.
    I found another used copy for $70 thru Textbooksnow - however the one that I just received was new but had dented corners. Nice book that I will add to my library.
     
  16. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    I'm no happier about high textbook prices than anyone else. But I think this thread has not touched on one of the primary reasons for high textbook costs.

    It's because there's a huge market in used textbooks. Every college bookstore buys back and resells textbooks, and the Internet has made this process even more widespread.

    Publishers and authors get zero revenue from used textbook sales. Suppose a textbook is sold once as new to Student A, who resells it to Student B after finishing the course, who in turn resells it to Student C. The publisher and author are only compensated once, on the initial sale to Student A -- they will not earn a cent for the use of the book by Student B and Student C. So they have to make a lot of profit on the initial sale to Student A.

    Of course, it's a vicious cycle. As the initial cost to Student A goes up, the more likely it is that he will try to recoup some of that cost by reselling the text. And as the price of new textbooks goes up, the more likely it is that Students B and C will try to save money by buying a used text.

    By the way, this also explains why "new" editions of textbooks keep appearing so frequently, even in well-established fields (like calculus) that don't really need them. The "new" edition chases all of the old used textbooks off the secondary market, so that the publishers and authors can sell a bunch of new books instead. Remember, they only make money when a new book is sold.

    Apparently publishers are now getting the idea of offering rental textbooks directly to students, at steeply discounted prices. At the end of the course, the student can either return the rented book to the publisher, or pay an extra charge to keep it. But in either case,the book does not enter the secondary market as a used book.

    If texts were rented from the publisher, rather than purchased, this would ensure that the publisher and author are compensated every time a student uses the text. In theory, this could restore some sanity to testbook pricing, and would eliminate the pressure for constant new editions. Whether it will work in practice remains to be seen, but it seems like it's worth a try.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 1, 2009

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