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Ripoff 101: Gouging Students for Textbooks
Brad Lucier writes "The San Jose Mercury News covers a report by the California Student Public Interest Research Group entitled "Ripoff 101" about the high, and increasing, cost of university textbooks. The story notes several practices that force students to buy new books instead of used and quotes yours truly about how universities are insulated from the costs of books. Is electronic textbook publishing the way to go?"
For a $100 textbook, students sometimes pay $5 per page they read during the semester.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
go to the library and check out older editions of said books. Then just keep renewing them and give em back at the end of the term.
When I was at college, nary a course would go by without the lecturer recommending his (I did physics... no 'her') book as the 'seminal text on the subject'. Seminal. Yep.
:-)
The (more serious) bad point is that some lecturers are cosy with publishers, and even make a commission about recommending certain books. This isn't right, IMHO. The faster other universities go the way of MIT with openCourseware (yes, I know it's a year delayed, but they produce it in the right year) with a reviewable (and editable, though that's not at MIT yet, AFAIK), the better.
So, electronic publishing - big thumbs up. Wiki version, with verified (PGP ?) annotation/citation, even better
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I wanted to yell at him, "THEN WHY DO YOU MAKE US BUY THE NEW ONES?!"
But I realized that many of my professors used the books they wrote themselves - conflict of interest, anyone?
***
This is just another side effect of a copyright society. Although copyrights alledgely promote the creation of works, does not mean they promote the dissimation of usefull works. Alot of people think that cheap tabloids that are pennies on the page, and expensive text books that are pages on the dollar is just another aspect of a free market society, along with the hype over substance that goes with - but it is not. Copyrights are not free market because they are not about freedom, they are about controll. One of these days people will learn that just because an institution calls somthing a right, does not mean that it is. The sooner we learn that with copyrights the better - especially in the information age where the only way to differentiate free speech content from copyright content is to appoint people to censor it.
- Wait a week or two before buying your books. That way you'll know if the professor will be using it throughout the course. Talk to other students who have taken the course and ask them if the professor used the book.
- See if said student still has the textbook for the class (and hasn't sold it for a $10 bag of pot), and ask to "borrow" it... or buy it in exchange for a $10 bag of pot... pot *is* a valid form of currency in college, you know.
- Check out all the online bookstores, but make sure they have the book in stock! I once got burned by a now-defunct online textbook site because the book I needed was back ordered for 6 weeks. Other than that, you can usually get some slick deals (almost anything is better than the campus bookstore).
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
"Unless students vote with their feet by boycotting classes that require overpriced textbooks, and threatening to switch schools or majors if a required course requires the overpriced textbook, there's never going to be any change."
That's ridiculous. We're not talking about CDs here - you'd be boycotting your way straight to a lower-paying job. You can't boycott a required class, and there are always people who will want to take optional classes (if there weren't, they wouldn't be offered). Switching majors isn't an option for anyone who actually has direction in their life - I'm not going into CompLit just because Psych textbooks cost more. Switching schools isn't a threat either - firstly, you'll typically set yourself back a great deal by doing so, and secondly, there are plenty of people willing to take your place.
G
I'm probably beaten to the punch already, but it was always amusing (in a hopeless sort of way) how our Calculus 101 textbook would change every two years. I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure that the introductory field of Calculus hasn't changed at all over the last 100 years.
All the bastards do is introduce a few new questions at the end of the chapter and call it a new edition.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
I ended up keeping a VB textbook I paid $90 for, and it turned out I needed to take the previous level class after getting an A in the 'second level VB' course, so I'm glad I didn't burn or toss my text, as it was actually the same text. Also, I've got at least 15 decent books on Unix/Linux, but I was required to buy a $120 textbook that is equal to Unix for dummies, just so I can complete a few moronic exercises for an intro to Unix class :(
All you need is a scanner and now you have Association of American Publishers going after P2P networks. Now if I can only bittorrent me a box of cup-o-noodles then that will be sweet. :-)
it's called a Scanner and eMule. if every student did JUST ONE TEXTBOOK, well, that could save millions from this obviously needless and wasteful new calculus textbook problem! in case my html is messed up: http://www.pricewatch.com/1/6/1476-1.htm http://www.emule-project.net/
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Why don't people get organized, scan the texts with some sort of automated page-turning scanner (I know that universities have this sort of stuff), compress them, and upload them to P2P networks?
It's not just the textbooks. The whole College/University system is a self perpetuating racket. In reality, a college degree means nothing in most cases, but those who have one feel the need to validate their efforts, so they require one for any job they hire for.
So, You have to get a degree, which in most cases teaches you nothing you couldn't learn better through experience. This costs you at least 2 years of take-home pay, plus interest, and while you are there you get used at indentured servant rates by the university (called "work-study") to do what would otherwise cost them $40K/yr. You are generally taught by the people least qualified in the field, often by people who you can't understand the first word they say (Foreign Grad Students). The best engineers are working as engineers, the best businesspeople running companies, it is, by and large, the mediocrities who are teaching, with a few notable exceptions at the most prestigious of universities.
The whole system is a racket designed to benefit the administrators and faculty who, in most cases, are 1960's and '70s reject recycled hippies who have used the university as a place to hide all their lives.
The system is broken. We should replace "College" with a decent high-school system (a lot of what gets taught in College is remedial education on basic math, reading and writing, and hard science) and apprenticeships for most things. Universities are for advanced research, not a 4 year party. Think about it: if you spent what you spent on college on certifications and books, you'd have plenty left over for a few years world-trekking!
So, I guess you all know what I think of tax $$ being used to continue to subsidize College. I think it's a waste of money, and it would be better spent on vocational training, and fixing the K-12 system.
Degree mills have their use.
After being unemployed for the last 6 months, I found my resume rejected by automated screening processes because I didn't have a B.S.
The bot didn't care that I had 10+ years of hands on experience in exactly what they were looking for.
Those few that DIDN'T auto-reject, I got in for interviews and have since gotten an excellent, good-paying job with one of them.
I've known too many people with traditional degrees from traditional universities who were worthless at their job to use a degree as a BS degree as a major benchmark for employment.
Graduate degrees are usually a different matter, though. (Except MBAs, for which there are more diploma mills than any other degree.)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Speaking from first-hand experience, I just finished coauthoring a textbook on a fast-moving high-tech topic. In this instance (as opposed to say, Calculus), new editions are not only justified, but necessary, since the information in the textbook becomes stale very quickly (a matter of 2-3 years in my case).
Furthermore, you shouldn't hold the professors or authors in contempt--we make a pittance. It's the publishers and bookstores that are making a killing. As coauthor, I make $4 of royalty for every copy that the bookstore sells for $85. The total royalty, even for a class of 30 or so students (typical in this subject area at my university), amounts to nothing more than peanuts. Furthermore, we have a textbook selection policy that requires an independent committee to select the book. Of course, I can't comment on other universities, but my university is a major midwestern state university which may or may not have typical policies regarding textbook selection.
Finally, given the amount of effort I have put into this book, it will never pay off financially. It would make more sense for me to spend my time flipping burgers at McDonalds. I think of it as charity, to improve the educational experience of the students that use it.
I too say "No thanks."
There is something about a paper text that makes learning better (perhaps even easier). You can make margin notes, highlight the major points and put little post it notes here and there. You can flip back a couple of pages or chapters and you can read ahead to prep for the next days class.
You can huddle with you classmates at a table and study. You can keep those most important books for future reference.
But, most importantly, a book is non-virtual. It is something that represents knowlege. A good textbook is a good read, unfortunately, there aren't too many really good textbooks anymore.
As a student I had the luxuary of getting knowlege for knowlege's sake. As a working adult I no longer have that luxuary, as a result, I only find the time to learn what I need to at the moment. Believe me, there is a real difference.
I'm sorry, but I have only an imperfect understanding of this. Maybe it will ring a bell with someone out there who can explain it better.
In the US, sometime during the Reagan administration I believe, the tax code was changed, and this directly affected publishing companies in how they could depreciate inventory. If I remember correctly, publishers used to be able to print a large edition, warehouse the books for years, and write a part of that inventory off on their taxes.
From my understanding, the tax code changed so that it became far more expensive for publishing companies to warehouse books -- they couldn't enjoy the write offs they once could.
The result is, publishing houses print smaller editions, and come out with newer editions more frequently. These smaller printings are more expensive. This raises the price of books, and pressures schools to use the newest editions -- driving down the value of used books.
Who wins and who loses?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I think you are way off here. Maybe my college is different than yours, but in all the classes I have taken at Ga Tech I have yet to have a course where the professor chose a book that they wrote.
This statement really struck home. As a recent graduate from a major university, I've been paying a ransom for book for the last several years. One of the most expensive (and not surprisingly, lease useful) was the calculus book required for all calc classes on campus. The idea was to 'standardize' the calc classes among different professors by requiring the same text. Not big surprise that the same department head who started this initiative was a co-author of the book. During the 5 years of college, I saw 3 different revisions of the book. The only thing which changed was the page numbers, introduction, and the problem questions.
Seriously, how much has introductory calculus changed in the last 10 years? The sad part is that stuff like this is common. Many professors will require books authored by their friends who teach at other schools. These friends reciprocate. Criminal, IMO.
That's ridiculous. We're not talking about CDs here - you'd be boycotting your way straight to a lower-paying job.
Jesus Christ, what a pussy. Your whole sad excuse for a generation too for that matter. How the hell did you kids come from our loins?
All the years I spent driving you dickheads around in the SUV, listening to all your bs about just how ultra rad xtreme freaking cool you were compared to your embarrassingly dorky parents...and you spineless wimps think stealing a few mp3s is the height of radical political action!
Get with it guy. We helped stop a war. Ya think, I mean DO YA THINK, BOY, you could protest your way to a lower fucking textbook cost????
Come on, man! College administrators are as pussified a collection of people as you are ever going to meet. Two ugly feminists who can put together a sign on a stick can make an entire academic communinity cater to them. Imagine what you and 100 of your friends could accomplish if you had as big a set of balls as those babes?
I worked 2 years in publishing and sales representation to the academic market.
:) Seriously, be polite but firm, and be prepared to reiterate- some have been so high up in their ivory towers that oxygen is sometimes rare. The publishers can put out a new edition every 3-4 years only with the complicity of the professor.
*Advice on bringing down the prices of books appear below the rant*
[rant]
So there's a few things I'd like to set straight, especially for the whiny bunch (you can't bring prices down if you don't know who's responsible):
-trade stores buy books at 60% of the cover price
-university bookstores buy at 80% of the cover (a 25% markup)
-print runs on all but the most popular books (think 1st year intro) are ridiculously small
-professors are lucky if they make 10% of the cover price. Even if that amounts to $5,000, a tenured professor would expect to make more money than that for a few hundred hours of work. (It's not the money: it's publish or perish).
So, the university bookstore is obviously not making massive amounts of money, nor is the author(s). So, the publisher makes a killing, right? Well, sometimes. The guys cranking out a new edition of that $120 first year text every 4 years is making entirely too much money, as are those that bundle materials or otherwise force you to buy a new copy.
Smaller publishers that can't get professors to publish that big first year textbook with them generally aren't doing so well. Publishing any book cost several thousand dollars. Printing is not the biggest expense, and goes down fast as print run size increases (per unit, obviously). Editing and layout eats up most of the budget, then you have to add sales and distribution.
Yeah, there's a few people that think we could let professors write things on a wiki, and not bother with editing. Sometimes, you're right: there are some professors that can actually write. Let me be blunt: we reject 90%+ of manuscripts, and the other half can be unreadable without major editorial adjustments. Editors have to be highly educated, and it is not uncommon for them to be PhDs- and that doesn't come cheap.
An index also cost money and you can't just use a software package to tell you what words are on what page, as that's pretty useless.
Having spent a good part of my time in the sales side of things... do you realize how many books we have to outright GIVE to professors so they will consider the book for their class? They're only a few dollars a pop to print, but having to meet professors, find out what they are teaching the following year, mail them books once printed... all that costs a lot of money. In upper-level classes with small enrollments, you can be giving out 2% of the books, and some free copies for TAs (up to 1 per 25 students).
And don't get me going on the price of an ad in an academic journal, or sending sales reps to their conventions.
Moral of the story: it cost an awful lot of money to put out a book. There are profiteers - the first year textbook sellers that put out a new edition every 3-4 years, and the folks that would give you $4 for that $120 book.
This is not the music industry. Publishers -especially the smaller ones- are nerds that want to put out good books.
[/rant]
To get back to the prices though... as I said, there are profiteers: resellers and big publishers.
The resellers ought to be put out of business. Use eBay, whatever it takes, but don't sell them books.
There is another player in this market that has enormous power to set things straight, but is often overlooked: the professor.
If your professor wrote one of those fat 1st year texts which comes bundled- lobby them. Tell them you find such practices appalling, and that you would much rather spend money on beer.
If your professor asks you to buy those expensive books, ask them to complain to the publishing house. A couple professors that tell the sales reps they won't use the text again unle
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
This seems to be one where students should be able to fight and win.
1. Get the students organized (80% of them at least).
2. Make reasonable demands.
3. Don't buy the books at your local rip-off shop.
4. Change the local system.
5. Profit for the students.
Either gain power from money or numbers. You students have the numbers - just not the organization.
help out.
Why do the authors of textbooks continue to insist on going through publishers? Why do they not produce computerized works instead of printed books? If they really are making a pittance on the royalties, they shouldn't care whether the book is in print or in the form of a PDF (or some other doc format) -- the point is to get a textbook pub out.
Is this purely because of the editorial facilities of publishing companies? Is it really that hard to edit and typeset a document yourself? People do it themselves all the time in academic publications, why not in textbooks?
In Pennsylvania, local school districts are funded by taxes on property in the district. The typical homeowner pays thousands of dollars per year to the school district, whether or not they have children in school. School board elections turn into ugly battles when one candidate wants to improve schools and raise taxes, and another candidate is opposed to tax increases and spending. What % of taxes goes to textbooks? What alternatives exist that will cut expenses without sacrificing quality of education? Do "open source" textbooks exist for K-12?
I only bought the textbooks for the first semester of Uni after that I never bought any again unless I thought I would use it as a refference book. I know at my Uni the Library had at least 5 copies of each book I had and even if they were out the public library had another cople of copies.
You are legally allowed to photocopy "parts" of any book and since most of the time you either write summary notes or just use a section of the book (pages 110-115,127 and 130-140) it's easy and leagal to get the information.
We were able to download all the slides that they used in the leactures and only one of two leactures reffered to the textbook more than "for additional reading see ???"
As for getting the latest version why bother you can alway get the old version and just relise that there may be some changes.
Here's a summary of my Uni text book budget:
*First Semester ~ $450 on text books.
*Every other semester ~ $50.
I teach at the college level and the high price of text books is a problem. You would be surprised at the number of students who try to get by without buying a book (either because they can not afford it or they think they can get by without them). By the way, if you can not afford a text book it is worth a try to see if the instructor has an extra copy. I often loan books to students. My colleagues and I receive our copies for free so we have to stay aware of how much the book actually cost the student. For example I was about ready to use one text for a class when I discovered that a similar text, actually a bit better, was available for 35% less. I switched books. Also, I think it is the responsibility for the instructor to do their own homework and make sure that the book is relevant and that it will actually be used.
Why are students required to buy textbooks in the first place? I got a book grant from my college (Trinity, Cambridge) of 135 pounds in the second year, and I couldn't find enough books I needed to spend it all. I ended up getting a couple of thick hardbacks containing the Java 1.2 API which are very useful for raising my monitor above the desk, ML for the Working Programmer because the author was one of the coolest lecturers, Concurrent Systems by Jean Bacon because it might be useful sometime (although it turns out the handouts she gave were photocopied from it), and Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell (what? It's from the O'Reilly ... in a Nutshell series, isn't it?) The comic book's the only one I ever read, although I did buy one (1) book the following year because it covers the maths I needed for my dissertation project extremely well.
One of my instructors pointed this out. In 1970 when he first started teaching, the cost of a Chemistry text was $25. He used the same text for five years, without an edition change. Unfortunately, science changed, and the authors didn't update, so he had to use a new book. This preempted a policy which required books be reviewed and updated every two years (whether or not it was necessary). He's found increasing error rates ever since. My Chemistry book now contains at least 12 errors, and costs $135. The lab manual, a floppy paper manual that costs $65, contains experimental procedures which are specifically disallowed by lab safety (like pouring certain reactants into water, when you should pour water into certain reactants instead to prevent violent explosions). Likewise, my American Civilization text costs $85, and omits several important details which I learned in High School.
So the question is, why am I paying more money for less accurate and informative texts? Because the school profits from them. It's not merely the indirect profits - the actual margin on most books is sometimes as low as 10% - but the manufacturers often give direct rebates to the college book stores. These "back ends rebates" amount to thousands of dollars, and represent a large share of the books cost.
Then there are the book buy backs - where they give you sometimes as little as half the face value for books that are in pristine condition. My solution - I sell them to individuals instead of the book store, for the same half-price. If I don't profit from my books, nobody does.
As I am currently working on my Master's, I've had to spend a ton of bucks on texts.
Each course at my local State U costs me about $390 in tuition. (For a three credit course, that's a bargain!) I've had courses where the texts cost almost as much as the tuition for the course. After my first semester, I said "no way!"
Now I purchase all of my texts from overseas as the International Editions. These are the exact same textbooks published by the exact same publisher and everything is exactly the same, page numbers, problems, colors used in printing, you name it. The only exception is that they come in paperback and they usually say "NOT FOR SALE IN NORTH AMERICA." on them.
How could you find an international edition? Well I'm glad you asked.
Go to Amazon.com and look up your book. Generally they will have them for the same sales price as your local college bookstore. Here is a popular Finance textbook on sale for about $135. It's packed with useless CDROMS and other stuff that will never be used.
If you notice it has a "Buy New and Used from $34.95" link on the page. That will take you to a page where Amazon will list a lot of zShop vendors who have the book. Some of them will come right out and say "Int'l" or "paperback" edition. If they have the book as "brand new" and it's only around $80 or so, that's an indication that your book will be arriving UPS or Fedex from Singapore or Taiwan as the Int'l Edition. What a deal!
Refuse to pay those outrageous prices at the bookstore! I know in the case of business schools, reading a good business newspaper or magazine will teach you far more about business than any textbook. If you care about learning, spend the savings on that!
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
I can sure relate to this! I had a stage design class 20 years ago that required a $150 book with glossy inlay photos of just about every set design ever imagined. We never even opened the book in class - instead had to go back out to the hardware store for tools (the book was "required" by the previous instructor, but the current instructor preferred a more hands-on approach). Luckily, the bookstore bought back my book - at a third of the price! (which they then resold used for $120).
/book). I was told by the bookstore that they still had two copies of the 2nd edition, and would not order any more until those had been sold. So, I pointed my students at O'Reilly and bookpool.com. And I caught hell from the administration for even suggesting that students get books from anywhere other than the campus bookstore.
I've since taught a class on web servers at a local tech college. When the 3rd edition of Apache: The Definitive Guide was released, I told the bookstore that I needed my students to have the latest edition (I chose the title with its price in mind, as opposed to the suggested courseware that ran $90
But, for some courses, a mainstream O'Reilly book may not be appropriate. Sometimes you need specialized course books, which will never sell in the volume needed to bring them below the $50 range. Writing books takes a lot of time and research, or you don't get a book worthy of teaching from. While information is freely available on the internet, is it reliable, trustworthy information? How can you tell? Why, you get the endorsement of a publishing company! Which, of course, costs money - as does the authors time, etc.
So here's my suggestions -
Teachers - find reasonably priced books for your students where ever you can. Screw the campus bookstore - trust me, the campus will find other ways to swindle the students (like selling their names to advertisers like the University of Minnesota does). Find reliable, affordable books for your students where ever possible to do so.
O'Reilly, Prentice Hall, etc - is there any way you can reduce the costs of these books? Can publishers take a loss on instructional materials, knowing that students who value the materials will probably by other, more mainstream books in the future? It seems that the price will never come down as long as we keep purchasing books from these small, speciallized publishers who only deal with books for class-use. Tim O'Reilly, as such a strong leader in the publishing industry, can you help push this, and in the long run, help make education more affordable?
Authors - offer updates online where ever possible. If it's possible for someone to dust off an old 1st edition, and with a few corrections, updates, have the same material as the 3rd edition, why not enable them? Obviously, if the new edition is a significant rewrite, there's little that can be done. Also, try to find publishers that sell mainstream books as well as educational material. This not only can potentially make your book cheaper to the student, but you may find non-students buying your books from the publisher's catelog. How can that be a bad thing?
School administrators - quit your job, and join the public sector. Let people who's first goal is education (not profit) run our educational institutions. (U of Minn, I'm talking to you!). There's plenty of room for greed out there in business, we don't need you in education.
Students - start your own used book clubs without the help of the campus. Share materials where ever you can, and DEMAND BETTER of your school! You're paying for the service, in this consumer-driven country, it is up to you to demand changes!
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
There are a few solutions to this problem.
First off, a big problem is that publishers who know their books are being used as course-books, publish a new version with nominal changes, very quickly. That ensures that you can't get your money back by selling your book as used, and students can't save money buying used books. The only reason schools and professors go along with this, is that the nominal changes don't affect their cirriculum, except they may have to change page numbers.
I would prefer that the old books are used. Schools should have a contract with any publishers, saying that they will continue to sell the same book, at a pre-set price, for X number of years.
Second: I would encourage anyone with a scanner to scan-in their books. A sheet-feed scanner (or a scanner with an ADF) can just be loaded with the pages of a book, and automatically digitize them. Then, distributing them as text files, PDFs, or any other format would be easy. People just don't seem willing to do digitization on their own... That's why we see many more CDs and DVDs on Peer-to-Peer networks than TV shows, et al.
In addition to this, it may very-well be considered fair-use for professors to distribute electronic copies of out-of-print books. Both educational purposes are involved, and the book is out of print, so it's hard to say there is major financial damage being done. I'm sure there would be a lawsuit when first done, but I bet the schools would win. Either classes would start comming with free books on CD-ROMs, or book publishers would have to keep their books in-print to prevent that from being fair-use.
Third: Instructors should be more careful about what they require students to buy. I know I had an english class where I bought 3 expensive text-books, where only one of them was used. One we only read a 3-page story from, and the thrid was NEVER EVEN OPENED. I complained to the teacher, and to administrators, but they all said there was no blame to place... It's just not considered bad to bleed your students. I wouldn't be surprised if publishers are actually bribing professors in the near future to require lots of worthless books.
Last: There are a few professors that care about book-costs. I know one Unix instructor who uses the FreeBSD Handbook as the only course material, and doesn't require buying any books. I know another teacher who went to great lengths to allow students to use any of the past 3 revisions of the course book. He listed the different pages for different revisions, and even went as far to print-up a sheet which listed all the differences in content between the versions. Unfortunately, the latter professor went through a great deal of work to do this, so few would be willing to do so. The former professor has the better system, but others are not very considerate, and just don't care how much money is being wasted by students.
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