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Good Question: Why Are Textbooks So Expensive?

(WCCO) It's the time of year when college students are moving into their dorms and college parents are opening up their checkbooks. The trip to the bookstore is often a painful way to start the year. So why are textbooks so expensive?

Or as Jeffrey Fetzer of Roseville asked, "Why the hell are college textbooks so expensive?"

In an e-mail to Good Question, Fetzer wrote, "I mean, seriously, I'm about to pay $120 for a book whose content hasn't changed in over 30 years, when the same book probably cost a fraction of that price when it first came out. Does this qualify as price gouging or is the dramatic rise in textbook prices completely reasonable?"

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, textbook prices rose 186 percent from 1986 to 2004. Tuition at the same time went up nearly 240 percent. Inflation was up just 72 percent.

"They have many fewer copies to spread their production costs over, and their development costs are much higher than a novel," said Bob Craab, director of the University of Minnesota bookstore.

Craab has been a part of task forces looking to reduce textbook costs to students. He said the bookstore keeps $25 out of every $100 textbook, the rest goes to the publisher.

"The used book industry has cut into their earnings and sales," said Crabb.

"I have to always buy NEW books because the school is required to purchase the latest edition of a book and when it comes time to sell my book back to the bookstore in hopes of getting some of my money back, I'll usually get a small fraction of the initial price or nothing because a new edition of the book I just bought has been released," e-mailed college student Erick Schalo.

Crabb said the publishing industry has been quite clear as to why they produce so many new editions.

"I think its a little greed on the part of publishers and on the part of authors to eliminate the used book sales," said Crabb.

Publishers make most of their money in the first and second semesters a book goes to sale. Same deal with book authors. However, when the third semester comes around, more and more students are buying books on the used market and publishers are not getting a piece of that action.

It's an excuse for marking up the price that doesn't sit well with Crabb.

"General Motors doesn't get a penny for a used car, but they live with that," he said.

"Five, six years ago the publishing cycle, was about four years you'd get a new edition. Now it's down to about two-and-a-half years," according to Crabb.

Textbooks do cost more to produce than a novel. There are more color pictures, graphs and charts, and that costs money, according to Crabb.

"It's not just a book anymore, it's a whole array of offerings," he said. Many books come with CD-ROMs, study guides, teacher guides and other features.

"There are times when publishers add components that really are of no value," said Crabb. Those CDs also can suppress the used market for the book.

"It included a CD that I never used and which prevented me from returning the used to book for money at the end of the summer semester," wrote Bill Roehl in a comment thread on Jason DeRusha's WCCO.com blog.

When a publisher sells a novel, they go to a couple major retailers and convince them to carry the book. When a publisher sells a textbook, "they gotta fight for every adoption. They have big sales forces to talk with every professor and that's expensive," said Crabb.

Crabb said that the process of professors selecting a textbook is a lot like a doctor prescribing a drug. And the pricing pitfalls are the same.

"It's not something that publishers, when the reps sitting down with them, they don't make a point of the price," he said.

 

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