The high price of college textbooks: Who's to blame?
Since at least as early as 2003, there has been a growing movement in academia to force book publishers to offer lower-priced college textbooks.
The movement is supported by various segments of PIRG, Public Interest Research Group, which claim the average student spends $900 a year on textbooks. Yesterday, reports the Boston Globe's David Mehegan, some 700 math and physics professors at more than 150 colleges nationwide peppered one publisher -- Thomson Learning -- with letters demanding it lower textbook prices and offer its books online or in some kind of e-book format.
The Association of American Publishers believes PIRG is exaggerating the average cost of textbooks. In a press release it obviously put out in response to the action, AAP writes: "No other source is available to support this assertion. Research by Student Monitor says the average four-year undergraduate spends approximately $625 a year on textbooks. Textbook spending equals six cents of the average student's education dollar, according to the College Board."
I don't know where PIRG gets its $900 a year number either. It seems low to me, considering the average undergraduate student buys at least 10 textbooks a year if he or she signs up for at least five classes each in fall and spring semester. Some students, myself included, attend summer sessions. Many classes have more than one book. And textbook prices for graduate students are generally priced higher than for undergraduates as I recall from my graduate school days nearly 20 years ago. The textbook for my Emergency Medical Technician course in 2000 was nearly $100, and the accompanying workbook was $40.
So who's to blame for the high price of college textbooks? On October 25, 2003, the New York Times laid the blame squarely -- and wrongly -- at the feet of publishers. It editorialized:
Well ... there hasn't been mass defections to purchase books from overseas markets like the Times predicted. But the problem of high priced college textbooks exists with no obvious solution.
As a graduate student, I took professors to task in a campus newspaper editorial for using textbooks they authored, thus ensuring they'd be getting royalties from some sources. But one professor, who assigned the textbook he authored for his class, defended his use. "Who knows the material in that book better than I do? I don't set the price of the textbook; the publisher does." Good point, and one I hadn't considered.
Professors don't have to assign textbooks. One alternative is that a professor require students to take lecture notes. That's what students had to do years ago when textbooks were few and far between and there were no low-cost mass production techniques. I don't know about you, but I don't take notes that fast. Nor would I want to generate five textbooks worth of notes every semester. I generated enough notes from lectures containing ancillary material as it was.
Some years after leaving graduate school I was named president of a computer software and book publishing company and I found out what really causes the high prices: middlemen, transportation costs and distributors. It's something consumers don't realize. I can understand their frustration paying high prices for college textbooks. As Slick Willie would say: "I feel your pain."
After reading that editorial in the New York Times on textbooks, I penned a response and sent it along to the Times:
I'm sure the large publishers can take advantage of their size and sell direct to college bookstores. But the college bookstores will still demand a minimum of 20 percent discount off list in small quantities; 40 percent in greater numbers. And if you do that, you have to deal with problems of "equity" -- if the publishers are selling direct to colleges or individuals, the wholesalers or resellers will become unhappy. As a publisher, you see, your job is to create the product, manufacture it, advertise and promote it, ship it and then let someone else come in and take 40 to 76 percent of the cost the book just for being there in the channel.
The cost of publishing our little paperback book on recycled paper was in the vicinity of $3.50 each in the 5,000 unit quantities I was ordering. When we published a tutorial on Windows, the primary complaint was that users wanted the book filled with 4-color pictures of the computer screens. Printing color is expensive, and we would have had to price the book at double what we did.
As I wrote to the Times back in 2003, the obvious solution is to offer the textbooks in a type of e-book format -- my ex-sister-in-law tells me many of her textbooks in her MBA program at the University of Phoenix are e-books -- but publishers won't readily adopt that idea if there's a chance the e-book could be hacked by an enterprising and bright person. And college environments are full of enterprising and bright people.
The movement is supported by various segments of PIRG, Public Interest Research Group, which claim the average student spends $900 a year on textbooks. Yesterday, reports the Boston Globe's David Mehegan, some 700 math and physics professors at more than 150 colleges nationwide peppered one publisher -- Thomson Learning -- with letters demanding it lower textbook prices and offer its books online or in some kind of e-book format.
The Association of American Publishers believes PIRG is exaggerating the average cost of textbooks. In a press release it obviously put out in response to the action, AAP writes: "No other source is available to support this assertion. Research by Student Monitor says the average four-year undergraduate spends approximately $625 a year on textbooks. Textbook spending equals six cents of the average student's education dollar, according to the College Board."
I don't know where PIRG gets its $900 a year number either. It seems low to me, considering the average undergraduate student buys at least 10 textbooks a year if he or she signs up for at least five classes each in fall and spring semester. Some students, myself included, attend summer sessions. Many classes have more than one book. And textbook prices for graduate students are generally priced higher than for undergraduates as I recall from my graduate school days nearly 20 years ago. The textbook for my Emergency Medical Technician course in 2000 was nearly $100, and the accompanying workbook was $40.
So who's to blame for the high price of college textbooks? On October 25, 2003, the New York Times laid the blame squarely -- and wrongly -- at the feet of publishers. It editorialized:
High-Priced College Textbooks
Many outstanding students do not even apply to college because their families cannot afford the soaring cost of tuition. The most determined students make the leap by borrowing steeply and working long hours. Still, they struggle to pay for textbooks, which can cost nearly $1,000 per year.
These hard-pressed students were understandably vexed by the news that publishers who charge $120 for a textbook in this country sell the same book at half that price abroad. The publishers argue that niche books, printed in small lots, are expensive by definition. The publishers also assert that they have to lower prices abroad to sell any books there at all.
The economics of specialized, small-run books are indeed difficult. But a recent article by The Times's Tamar Lewin suggests that the publishers are driving up textbook costs wherever they can, often with the help of colleges and professors. For example, bookstores now sell bundled academic products that include a main textbook and as many as five supplements including study guides and CD-ROM's that are rarely sold separately.
Now that the cat is out of bag, book publishers will have to moderate their prices in this country or risk mass defections to foreign markets. Colleges also have a role to play in keeping book prices under control. Professors should change textbooks only when necessary not just because a nearly identical new edition comes on the market thereby ensuring that students have access to used-book services on campus.
Well ... there hasn't been mass defections to purchase books from overseas markets like the Times predicted. But the problem of high priced college textbooks exists with no obvious solution.
As a graduate student, I took professors to task in a campus newspaper editorial for using textbooks they authored, thus ensuring they'd be getting royalties from some sources. But one professor, who assigned the textbook he authored for his class, defended his use. "Who knows the material in that book better than I do? I don't set the price of the textbook; the publisher does." Good point, and one I hadn't considered.
Professors don't have to assign textbooks. One alternative is that a professor require students to take lecture notes. That's what students had to do years ago when textbooks were few and far between and there were no low-cost mass production techniques. I don't know about you, but I don't take notes that fast. Nor would I want to generate five textbooks worth of notes every semester. I generated enough notes from lectures containing ancillary material as it was.
Some years after leaving graduate school I was named president of a computer software and book publishing company and I found out what really causes the high prices: middlemen, transportation costs and distributors. It's something consumers don't realize. I can understand their frustration paying high prices for college textbooks. As Slick Willie would say: "I feel your pain."
After reading that editorial in the New York Times on textbooks, I penned a response and sent it along to the Times:
This editorial writer certainly did NOT do his homework. The cost of the textbooks is driven by the wholesalers and the costs of distribution, not the publishers or the colleges. I ran a publishing imprint -- now defunct -- and I know.
Bookstores won't buy books unless it is available through a wholesaler. Wholesalers demand and receive discounts of 76 percent off list and want to pay 180 days (6 months!!!) ARO (after receipt of order). That's a tremendous financial burden on a small publisher. The wholesaler also wants the right to return unsold books or unsaleable books damaged by them or their customers. And the unwritten rule is that the publisher has to advertise with the wholesaler in their flyers, paying top dollar for advertising space in a flyer that has an extremely low ROI (Return on Investment).
I would LOVE to have been able to sell our books for $5 or less but we priced it at $19.95 and still went out of business with the top selling computer tutorial on the market (John C. Dvorak's PC Crash Course and Survival Guide). The first President George Bush learned how to use a computer with it, and the New York Times' Larry Shannon raved about how great it was. It was a great product that filled a tremendous need and it was unprofitable from day one.
The solution to the high prices, of course, is cut out the middle men, to have the book available in e-book format downloadable directly from the publisher to an electronic tablet. But publishers won't offer that because of the piracy that would exist. They've seen what happened in the software, video and music industries and they won't make the same mistake. Capitalism doesn't work when you are guaranteed to lose your shirt.
I'm sure the large publishers can take advantage of their size and sell direct to college bookstores. But the college bookstores will still demand a minimum of 20 percent discount off list in small quantities; 40 percent in greater numbers. And if you do that, you have to deal with problems of "equity" -- if the publishers are selling direct to colleges or individuals, the wholesalers or resellers will become unhappy. As a publisher, you see, your job is to create the product, manufacture it, advertise and promote it, ship it and then let someone else come in and take 40 to 76 percent of the cost the book just for being there in the channel.
The cost of publishing our little paperback book on recycled paper was in the vicinity of $3.50 each in the 5,000 unit quantities I was ordering. When we published a tutorial on Windows, the primary complaint was that users wanted the book filled with 4-color pictures of the computer screens. Printing color is expensive, and we would have had to price the book at double what we did.
As I wrote to the Times back in 2003, the obvious solution is to offer the textbooks in a type of e-book format -- my ex-sister-in-law tells me many of her textbooks in her MBA program at the University of Phoenix are e-books -- but publishers won't readily adopt that idea if there's a chance the e-book could be hacked by an enterprising and bright person. And college environments are full of enterprising and bright people.
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posted by NEWS4A2, blood-sucking journalist @ 14:30
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