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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.
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.
"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
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 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.
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 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"
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.
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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