Rip-off 101 : How The Current Practices Of The Textbook Industry Drive Up The Cost Of College Textbooks

2004-01-29

Executive Summary

With student and faculty complaints about the price of college textbooks on the rise, the California Student Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG) and the OSPIRG Foundation conducted a survey of the most widely assigned textbooks in the fall of 2003 at 10 public colleges and universities in California and Oregon. Student volunteers and staff also interviewed 156 faculty and 521 students about the cost of textbooks and their purchasing practices. Key findings from this survey include:

Textbooks are Expensive and Getting Even More Expensive

• Students will spend an average of $898 per year on textbooks in 2003-04, based on surveys of University of California (UC) students in the fall of 2003. This represents almost 20 percent of the average tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year colleges nationwide. In contrast, a 1997 UC survey found that students spent an average of $642 on textbooks in 1996-97.

Textbook Publishers Add Bells and Whistles that Drive Up the Price of Textbooks; Most Faculty Do Not Use These Materials

• Half of all textbooks now come “bundled,” or shrink-wrapped with additional instructional materials such as CD-ROMs and workbooks. Students rarely have the option of buying the textbook “a la carte” or without additional materials.
• In the one instance that a textbook was available both bundled and unbundled (only the textbook), the bundled version was more than twice as expensive as the unbundled version of the same textbook.
• Sixty-five (65) percent of faculty “rarely” or “never” use the bundled materials in their courses.

Textbook Publishers Put New Editions on the Market Frequently – Often With Very Few Content Changes – Making the Less Expensive, Used Textbooks Obsolete and Unavailable

• Seventy-six (76) percent of faculty report that the new editions they use are justified “never” to “half the time.” Forty (40) percent of faculty report that the new editions are “rarely” to “never” justified.
• A new textbook costs $102.44 on average, 58 percent more expensive than the price of an average used textbook, $64.80.
• Fifty-nine (59) percent of students who searched for a used book for the fall 2003 quarter/semester were unable to find even one used book for their classes.

Faculty and Students Support Alternatives That Lower Students’ Costs, Maintain Quality

• Eighty-seven (87) percent of faculty support including new information in a supplement instead of producing a new textbook edition.
• Eighty-six (86) percent of students are considering buying and selling used textbooks through an online bookswap; 14 percent reported already using online bookswaps. Online Textbooks Hold Promise for Dramatically Lowering the Cost of Textbooks
• According to the Association of American Publishers and the National Association of College Stores, paper, printing and editorial costs account for an average of 32.3 cents of every dollar of the textbook cost – the largest share of the total.
• Online textbooks could eliminate this cost and significantly lower the retail cost of textbooks.
• Some authors and publishers are currently experimenting with online textbooks, a new industry trend that holds great promise.

The production and pricing of college textbooks merits scrutiny from educators and lawmakers because they affect the quality and affordability of higher education. As this report shows, the cost of textbooks is a growing expense for students. The high cost is primarily due to publishers producing new editions like clockwork, regardless of how much new educational content exists, and including expensive bells and whistles, such as CD-ROMs, that professors rarely find useful. The more expensive new editions force the older, less-expensive editions off the market.

Publishers should produce more affordable, quality textbooks. They also should offer faculty and students the option to purchase textbooks unbundled and provide faculty with more information on the company’s materials, their prices, intended length of time on the market and substantive content differences from previous editions. Faculty should use their decision-making power to demand substance over bells and whistles and should consider cost and accessibility of previous editions secondary only to educational value when selecting books for their courses.

Finally, students and universities can help make used books available to students by sponsoring on-campus and online bookswaps, campus rental programs and other means.