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Finally, an inside look at the college textbook industry

this is a pretty interesting 15-minute NPR segment on why they're so high:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/03/353300404/episode-573-why-textbook-prices-keep-climbing

TLDL:

- principal-agent problem: profs choose books without factoring in price because they dont have to pay for them. high school books are a lot cheaper (%5-%10 profit margin vs %20-%25) because the school is both choosing and buying the books.

- ease of reselling: publishers used to get a few years out of a textbook, but with ebay/half.com/etc, the majority of students buy used after the first year a book is out. so they have less time to make money on a given book
 
My daughter's books were only $600 this semester and I was thrilled. Why thrilled? Because they were $1,300 last semester.
 
Engineer said:
My daughter's books were only $600 this semester and I was thrilled. Why thrilled? Because they were $1,300 last semester.
Click to expand...

yeah in that NPR segment, they did say prices are trending slightly down

700$ savings is a lot more than slightly though!

in my last couple of years of college i just started getting everything i could off of half.com, saved probably 1$k that way
 
brianmanahan said:
yeah in that NPR segment, they did say prices are trending slightly down

700$ savings is a lot more than slightly though!

in my last couple of years of college i just started getting everything i could off of half.com, saved probably 1$k that way
Click to expand...

my last couple years in college i simply stopped buying books, that saved a lot of money as well!
 
brianmanahan said:
- principal-agent problem: profs choose books without factoring in price because they dont have to pay for them.
Click to expand...

A quick fix for that is making them buy the books they want to use every year at full retail cost. If the new book isn't worth a couple hundred dollars, they can use the old book they already have, and/or supplement it with their own writing(which should be released under a libre license).
 
I went into the bookstore last week, they wanted about $300 for a new copy of my Discrete Math book. I checked the prices on my other books and went across the street where I spent $200 to rent this semester's books. The campus bookstore's rental prices were better of course, about 120-80 for that one math book (don't remember exactly). Only noobs, idiots, and people that aren't spending their own money buy from a campus bookstore.
 
Ruptga said:
I went into the bookstore last week, they wanted about $300 for a new copy of my Discrete Math book. I checked the prices on my other books and went across the street where I spent $200 to rent this semester's books. The campus bookstore's rental prices were better of course, about 120-80 for that one math book (don't remember exactly). Only noobs, idiots, and people that aren't spending their own money buy from a campus bookstore.
Click to expand...

Unless I misunderstood my niece, when she bought the books for one of her classes, she had to buy them through the bookstore, because that's the only way to get the included online portion for the books - and the online portion was required for the class.
 
brianmanahan said:
yeah in that NPR segment, they did say prices are trending slightly down

700$ savings is a lot more than slightly though!

in my last couple of years of college i just started getting everything i could off of half.com, saved probably 1$k that way
Click to expand...

Not so easy now. EVERY course that she has taken the last two semesters has a web login portion that is required. You cannot buy it separately and it doesn't come with used books unless you get it from one of the two bookstores, one on campus and the other off campus.
 
DrPizza said:
Unless I misunderstood my niece, when she bought the books for one of her classes, she had to buy them through the bookstore, because that's the only way to get the included online portion for the books - and the online portion was required for the class.
Click to expand...

yep my brother went through that with a couple classes. luckily i graduated right before they started pulling that crap.
 
DrPizza said:
Unless I misunderstood my niece, when she bought the books for one of her classes, she had to buy them through the bookstore, because that's the only way to get the included online portion for the books - and the online portion was required for the class.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was talking about in the second post above this one.
 
DrPizza said:
Unless I misunderstood my niece, when she bought the books for one of her classes, she had to buy them through the bookstore, because that's the only way to get the included online portion for the books - and the online portion was required for the class.
Click to expand...

Alright you have me there. The one redeeming feature of that scheme is that you can often rent an electronic version of the book, which is around a third or less of the cost of a new paper text.

And somehow I don't mind that as much, because the online services add (some) value in addition to what the text offers. They're still price gouging, but it's less bad.
 
brianmanahan said:
this is a pretty interesting 15-minute NPR segment on why they're so high:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/03/353300404/episode-573-why-textbook-prices-keep-climbing

TLDL:

- principal-agent problem: profs choose books without factoring in price because they dont have to pay for them. high school books are a lot cheaper (%5-%10 profit margin vs %20-%25) because the school is both choosing and buying the books.

- ease of reselling: publishers used to get a few years out of a textbook, but with ebay/half.com/etc, the majority of students buy used after the first year a book is out. so they have less time to make money on a given book
Click to expand...
One of my instructors started out the class with an apology about the book. He said something about not being allowed to specify out-of-print books.


Some of these things have such widely-varying release schedules.
My thermodynamics book was originally published in 1996. The second edition came out 10 years later. I don't know what changed though, as I had already taken those classes.

Others average a new revision every 1-3 years.

The fundamentals of calculus have changed again! Update the books!
 
Ruptga said:
Alright you have me there. The one redeeming feature of that scheme is that you can often rent an electronic version of the book, which is around a third or less of the cost of a new paper text.

And somehow I don't mind that as much, because the online services add (some) value in addition to what the text offers. They're still price gouging, but it's less bad.
Click to expand...

There is no electronic rental feature available to any of my daughter's books the last two semesters. Most of them don't even offer a rental option for the physical book with the online code, just an option for used (rare) and new books with an online code provided inside the shrinkwrapped book.

On top of that, this is the second semester where at least one code didn't work and had to go through hoops to get them working. One had to have the professor work with the company for a week to finally get them all activated.
 
Jeff7 said:
One of my instructors started out the class with an apology about the book. He said something about not being allowed to specify out-of-print books.


Some of these things have such widely-varying release schedules.
My thermodynamics book was originally published in 1996. The second edition came out 10 years later. I don't know what changed though, as I had already taken those classes.

Others average a new revision every 1-3 years.

The fundamentals of calculus have changed again! Update the books!
Click to expand...
Even better when it comes to Latin.
 
Engineer said:
There is no electronic rental feature available to any of my daughter's books the last two semesters. Most of them don't even offer a rental option for the physical book with the online code, just an option for used (rare) and new books with an online code provided inside the shrinkwrapped book.

On top of that, this is the second semester where at least one code didn't work and had to go through hoops to get them working. One had to have the professor work with the company for a week to finally get them all activated.
Click to expand...

Colleges have finally figured out how to maintain a monopoly on book sales under the guise of "we need to have online components of classes, because kids have to be online for everything they do, else they won't have the skills for the workplace." They're no longer non-profit institutions, except in name. And as long as students can get virtually unlimited student loans...
 
DrPizza said:
Colleges have finally figured out how to maintain a monopoly on book sales under the guise of "we need to have online components of classes, because kids have to be online for everything they do, else they won't have the skills for the workplace." They're no longer non-profit institutions, except in name. And as long as students can get virtually unlimited student loans...
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. My daughter's payments are on me and my wife though. Something I promised to myself when I was going to school (and getting loans into the tens of thousands).
 
A lot of profs write chapters for text books during the summer, so they have a vested interest in making sure you buy the new editions every year. Get their nice, fat royalty cheque.

Universities now are just big paper factories.
 
Jeff7 said:
One of my instructors started out the class with an apology about the book. He said something about not being allowed to specify out-of-print books.
Click to expand...
That's BS. I am a prof, and there is nothing stopping profs from telling the bookstore that there is no textbook for the class. I do this for almost all of my classes. I then email the class before the beginning of the semester and tell them to buy the slightly out of date older edition of the book that I want to use for $20 on Amazon.

The whole book-choosing process is sleazy. They send unsolicited 'exam copies' to me all the time, and then the creepy book buyers come by and wave stacks of twenties in your face to by them off of you. It works out to a bribe, essentially. They never tell you how much it will cost students to buy the book, and the bookstores refuse to stock any edition that isn't the latest. The whole thing is essentially a scam.
 
Last edited:
Engineer said:
My daughter's books were only $600 this semester and I was thrilled. Why thrilled? Because they were $1,300 last semester.
Click to expand...
Jeez. I never spent that much on books in a quarter, and I have a fair number of textbooks from my major. Also, I only graduated from college 5 years ago come June.

Even lately, I've purchased a textbook or two related to my current research, and even those didn't even go over $75/book.
---
Edit:
I see that it's related to bullshit 'online' stuff. I'm so happy my classes never pulled that nonsense.
 
I also note that one of my daughter's professors told the class that the book must be purchased from the campus bookstore this semester because it was different than other places. She went to the off-campus store and compared. It was identical and was even guaranteed to be identical. It was $50 cheaper too.

So much for that....
 
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