<p>courtesy of your friendly educators and the thieves who hired them</p>
<p>Bullcarp.</p>
<p>Textbook prices have increased FAR LESS than college costs of attending.</p>
<p>Textbook costs have not even doubled since the 1980s when I went to school, and costs of attending are up to at least triple what they were.</p>
<p>Well, at least the costs of supplying that education have also gone up tremendously. What is the rational for the textbooks, is ink that much more expensive today? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Colleges may be grossly mismanaged in many cases, but the term ‘gouging’ is much better suited to describe the textbook situation.</p>
<p>Actually, my experience is that color figures and also including the latest research in certain fields has had a big impact.</p>
<p>I have biochemistry and cell and molecular biology textbooks that were $150 in the 1980s. The only textbooks we have now that are over $200 are ones that are sold at the bookstores for over $200, and can be gotten for $150 or less elsewhere, generally 1500 page full color illustration textbooks.</p>
<p>One of the offenders is on the 4th edition of a book within four years, each time putting the next year’s publishing date on it. We are using the 2015 edition this year,.</p>
<p>I tell my students to go to Amazon or ebay, and also tell them cheaper books by other authors that fit the same bill.</p>
<p>Asking 60K per year and then “most” don’t pay that is gouging. If you knew as much about the copious college administrators as I do, you would be disgusted at their salaries.</p>
<p>Textbook prices are high because of the fixed costs associated with publishing them. Unlike a John Grisham novel, where the fixed costs associated with editing/publishing are spread over a significant number of books, for textbooks these costs are spread over a relatively small number of books. </p>
<p>Secondly, educators are increasingly cognizant of prices for instructional materials. I teach in a system of community colleges and students often select online classes from the instructor/campus that offers the least expensive instructional materials. That means that I may be providing the academic advising and my campus may be providing the other student support services, but another campus is getting the revenue. Our administrators are keenly aware of this and there is a pressure to be cost conscious in textbook selection. The publishers are aware of this as well and they are making deals with the college to skip the bookstores and embed the e-books & access codes directly into Blackboard or whatever course management system is in use for a discounted charge to the student for about $65/course.</p>
<p>I am sorry but in a world where you can get almost any book for 10 or 20 dollars in an electronic format, there are NO justification for the pricing and distribution model of academic books. The industry, from K-12 through tertiary education is nothing else than an organized ripoff based on bribery and collusion. </p>
<p>Repetitive releases of barely updated material serve no purpose except to deter a secondary market. Simply stated, we could suspend all new editions for a decade and hardly a student would suffer. And we would save billions by avoiding grossly inflated expenses. Only organized corruption has precluded this to happen. The differences between domestic and foreign editions are testaments to this price to market. Nothing to do with production costs or royalties. </p>
<p>Take a look at the books you might still have and cry at the expense per … hour used! </p>
<p>Only Le gout du pain by Calvel is more of an economic aberration! <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Gout-du-Pain-Raymond-Calvel/dp/2865470164/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415670442&sr=1-1&keywords=le+gout+du+pain”>http://www.amazon.com/Gout-du-Pain-Raymond-Calvel/dp/2865470164/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415670442&sr=1-1&keywords=le+gout+du+pain</a> ;)</p>
<p>Is that book real? </p>
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<p>Do any of them look for free books like some listed here?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1289172-big-savings-for-u-s-students-in-open-source-book-program.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1289172-big-savings-for-u-s-students-in-open-source-book-program.html</a></p>
<p>“Textbook costs have not even doubled since the 1980s when I went to school, and costs of attending are up to at least triple what they were.”</p>
<p>OK, college tuition has gone up many times - but textbooks have as well. In the early-mid 80’s my textbooks (computer science) were generally $30-40, nowdays they’re $100+. To make things more entertaining there’s workbooks, multimedia materials, and the ever-popular ‘website access’ deals where for an extra $60 you get to save trees to do your homework.</p>
<p>Fast forward in the mid 90’s when I went back to school, engineering textbooks were in the $60-70 range. My older girl’s books now are in the $90 range but usually cheaper on Amazon.The biology and other $150+ books that haven’t gone up for a while simply have hit a ceiling as to what students are willing to pay. But for other classes text book costs are quite pricy and keep going up.</p>
<p>Fragmentation does not help. My older daughter took a class at a community college where there were 10 sections with 10 different instructors. And 8 different textbooks. For the same class. At least her major (architecture) does not require a lot of expensive books (studio classes rarely have textbooks for example).</p>
<p>I agree that in this day and age there is no justification for the hardbound books with pages for college kids. I found the gouging of having a “different” version of the book every year, with books over $200 more prevalent at my youngest son’s big public uni than I did at my two older kids. The older kids classes heavily relied on on-line resources. The cost of textbooks per semester for the two oldest never exceeded $250 and that was generally supplementary books. That is the price for a single book for my youngest. It’s “old school” thinking on the part of the education system…but what’s new, college education has for the most part been virtually unchanged for generations. </p>
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<p>Yep, and it is only 132 pages long. I found a copy in my grandfather’s library and, for that reason, it is priceless. Some books develop a cult following and it translates into crazy prices in the secondary market. Rocket Revolution (a SAT prep book) has enjoyed a similarly crazy “value” and one that is especically nutty considering the actual contents of the books. Because it has been out of print and not updated, some believe that there are well-hidden secrets in the 10 year old book. </p>
<p>Such anecdotes are very different from the dynamics of academic publications. I recently compared a 7th grade algebra book I used in middle school to its recent edition. I have no idea why there was a need to publish several editions in the last 15 years. The reason it happens is that the sales tactics have not changed much as the buyers’ market remain quite fertile. After all, who has the heart to cut the budgets for books in K-12 when the answer is to simply ask for more money? </p>
<p>My voice is often heard on this board complaining about the textbook racket. Publishers raise the prices without true justification because they can get away with it, effortlessly. We the public need to convince colleges (at least public colleges) not to participate in the scams of school-specific especial editions, as well as pricey online access codes.</p>
<p>For K-12, would new editions matter much in terms of costs? From what I remember, the K-12 schools just used the old books year after year until they were physically worn out and falling apart, then bought whatever new books or editions were available for the subject.</p>
<p>I risk being virtually stoned here, but I fully support the use of online access codes in some disciplines. I teach accounting and the use of a technology package is essential for my classes. I think math is similar. My students have an option of buying the student value edition (3 ring binder version) of the text along with their code or buying the code directly from the publisher with an e-text. The overwhelming majority want the actual textbook so they can follow along in class. Many do not have laptops or tablets that they can bring to campus. In addition to facilitating the online homework, the technology package I use has features for helping students work through homework with virtual tutoring, an ask my instructor feature which sends me a link of their algorithmic assignment so I can respond with specific guidance, a customizable study plan, videos, power points, etc. Students who fully utilize the package more than get what they pay for the access.</p>
<p>ucbaalumnus, as for free online textbooks, I know some instructors on my campus are utilizing those resources, but not many. One instructor who teaches Native American literature only requires her students to subscribe to a periodical whose cost is $12. </p>
<p>Publishers are aware of the price sensitivity in the market. Three of my four publisher reps were terminated in the last 3 years as the publishers reorganized to save money and replaced higher paid reps with new “green” reps. I know some of you won’t believe me, but there is some effort being made on their part to slow the price increases as the higher ed market shifts away from traditional lecture based instruction. </p>
<p>D is in a masters degree program in higher education and one of her classes hosted a prominent speaker about the changing face of higher ed. Her question to him was what would be the most significant change in the next 10 years and his response before she even finished the question was online instruction. This was from someone affiliated with a top university that has only recently dipped its toe in the waters of distance learning. We are headed to competency based education models in the coming years and the arguments over the price of textbooks are going to become pretty trivial, IMO. </p>
<p>I’ve always thought that the price of textbooks must have something to do with kickbacks to the school or the professor.</p>
<p>In my 26th academic year and wondering where my kickback is! Feeling deprived :)) </p>
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No. It all comes from the publisher. Kickbacks would be widely regarded as unethical and in some states even illegal. And it could not be kept secret. If it were widespread, it would be all over the news.</p>
<p>I had one professor in college who gave the class a rebate of the amount he got from his own book for that course.</p>
<p>Nearly anything is relatively expensive to manufacture in small production runs for a niche market.
One alternative to the textbook problem is to do what Columbia, UChicago, and St. John’s College have been doing for generations: teach liberal arts courses from primary source materials. </p>
<p>You can buy hardcover copies of Moby Dick, War and Peace, Origin of Species, or The Federalist on Amazon for under $10 each. Wealth of Nations could run you about the same, or a few dollars more. Granted, Baumol & Blinder’s often-revised Macroeconomics may be a little more up-to-date, for your ~$200.</p>
<p>The professor’s rebate is usually a tiny fraction of each book’s sales. Unless the professor is a world-renowned experts whose text is used for hundreds of courses a year it’s unlikely that the professors are really getting that much financially out of the book. I think the most plausible answer is that the demand for these books is low (but captive) and the high fixed costs mentioned by earlier posters like @2VU0609. Firing sales reps wouldn’t help that much since that’s not really why the books are so expensive to begin with.</p>