Textbook case of corporate overpricing

By Matt Rupel

What would you do with $900?

Buying textbooks may not be the first thing to come to mind, but that's what many students are doing.

According to a study entitled "Ripoff 101" by the U.S. Public Interest Reporting Groups, it's becoming increasingly hard for students to pay for textbook prices, especially during a recession. As a result, they are seeking different options to fulfill class assignments.

According to the U.S. PIRG study, individual textbooks sell between $80-150 and the average cost of textbooks increases six percent annually, twice the rate of inflation.

Freshman Fana Yohannes knows this feeling all too well. "Last quarter I was at a loss because I bought this Communications book that was like twelfth edition or whatever and I just used it for the quarter and when I tried to sell it they wouldn't buy it back because it wasn't the newest edition," she said.

Freshman Ryan Voreyer agrees: "I think it's ridiculous that prices have been going up so dramatically."

Used textbooks offer one way around these high prices. Nonetheless, classes often require the most recent edition of a textbook, phasing out the usefulness of a used textbook quickly.

Sophomore Jed Beals has only reused a textbook once. The book was for a language class. "Other than that, I haven't reused any textbooks," he said.

Textbook publishers will often make minimal changes from each edition to the next. Updated pictures and a few words can be the difference between a $30 eighth edition and a $90 ninth edition.

Jackson J. Spielvogel's "Western Civilization" covers the history and growth of European culture. The sixth edition, when compared to the fifth, contains updates to a handful of sections, but most changes only constitute between two and four paragraphs.

The seventh edition of "Brief Calculus: An Applied Approach," by Ron Larson and Bruce H. Edwards, has even fewer changes. Each text contains the same number of pages, and chapters begin and end on the same page in both books. The difference is renumbering of problems and wording changes throughout problems. The actual content of the books remained almost completely identical.

The report by the U.S. PIRG found that publishers stop making copies of older editions of textbooks usually within five years. When students order books from the bookstore, they receive the newest edition of the textbook because it is the only one available.

Also increasing the costs for textbooks is the inclusion of CD-ROMS or supplementary workbooks. While included in the cost for the textbook, some classes will not require the supplemental material. U.S. PIRG found that 65% of people used these tools rarely or never.

The sixth edition of "The Beacon Handbook," written by Robert Perrin, was published two years after the fifth edition. The new edition included electronic resources that provided extra interactive exercises to go along with the text.

Teachers can even be caught off guard.

Dr. Jeff Zorn, an English professor, opposes the bookstores policy of ordering new editions of textbooks.

"There are times that I don't even know that a different text has been ordered from the one that I was expecting," Zorn said.

Congress has jumped onboard for the fight against textbook prices. Last year, Congress set aside $10 million in grants for college bookstores in The Higher Education Reauthorization and College Opportunity Act of 2008.

Section 112 of the Act also states that publishers must release information to teachers or those selecting course materials about the pricing of the textbook at the school's bookstore compared to the price available to the public. Additionally, the publisher must release a list of copyright dates for the past three editions of the textbooks, any substantial revisions made within the editions and whether the items are available in any other formats -- including paperback or unbound. It also stipulates that textbooks coming with supplemental material must be sold as separately priced items.

"I don't necessarily believe that it's wrong for the textbook companies to make a profit," said Voreyer. "I think it's horrible, though, that they have to prey on college students."

There are other ways that students are working around the current cost for textbooks.

Recently, the option of renting textbooks has gained popularity, although the idea is still relatively new. Renting allows students to have access to a text for a short period of time and it saves students a significant amount of money. This means that students who do not plan to use the book for more than a quarter pay only a fraction of the full retail price of a book.

Rental textbooks can be found online, including popular Web sites like Chegg.com.

The biggest company to step into the textbook rental service has been bookstore giant Barnes and Noble. Last fall, the bookseller piloted a rental program at three college bookstores. Earlier this month, the company released a statement saying it plans to expand the program to 25 different campuses.

The campus bookstore, operated by Barnes and Noble, failed to comment due to contract obligations. Barnes and Noble did not return phone calls.

Yohannes hadn't really thought much about renting textbooks, but she said that now she's definitely giving it consideration. "You're only going to pay half of the value," she said. "Sure, you're not getting anything back, but it's better than paying the full value and getting almost nothing back."

Sometimes renting textbooks is not the economical choice. Because textbooks are sometimes used multiple times for different courses, renting books means that they can only be used for about one quarter, eliminating their potential for re-use. Rentals also require that a text remain in good condition. For Voreyer, this proves an issue, since he prefers to write directly into his textbooks.

A final option for avoiding higher costs is electric textbooks. Recent technological advances have caused the market for e-books to grow.

This would reduce their costs and allow publishers areas to make rapid improvements and attract students to purchasing new editions.

E-books are still a new market, and the technology, so it hasn't been widely adopted as of yet.

Contact Matt Rupel at mrupel@scu.edu.