Aug. 17, 2006

A Closer Read on Textbook Costs

A new report released today by the Student Public Interest Research Groups indicates that major American publishers are failing to offer viable low-cost alternatives to expensive college textbooks. At the same time, other free and low cost options from a variety of smaller publishing companies are slowly emerging.

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In an analysis of the online product offerings of four major textbook publishers — Thomson Learning, Pearson Education, Houghton-Mifflin and McGraw Hill — the student advocacy group found that the publishers usually do not offer lower-cost versions of many of their titles. And when lower cost options, like e-books or low-frill texts, are available, they are sometimes not prominently advertised. (Low-frill texts are often published in a soft cover and spiral bound format.)

In reviewing the catalogs of each of the publishers, the group looked for 22 frequently assigned textbooks, which had an average cost of $131.44 per book. Of the 22 textbooks, less than half had a comparable lower cost book. Two of the books were available in a low-frill format, while nine books were available as e-books.

“The majority of lower-cost options offered by the major publishers are online textbooks,” according to the report. “Unfortunately, the publishers often limit how the students can view or print these online textbooks, sometimes prohibiting them from printing the text at all.”

Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at the Association of American Publishers, said that it was “complete spin” to suggest that major publishers have not created or advertised low-cost versions of textbooks. “PIRG has once again taken pieces of misinformation to create a mistaken image of the publishers,” he said. “If you put it into perspective, there are hundreds of low-cost options available [to professors].” He said for an introductory psychology textbook alone, there are several alternative books that faculty members could choose to buy from mainstream publishers in the “upper twenties” range.

The report suggested that good news for the penny-pinched student could be found in the growing number of alternative publishers that are offering lower-cost and sometimes free texts. Through a survey of faculty members who had used such publishers, the report indicates that they are overwhelmingly “happy with the books’ educational content.”

Many of the free and low cost textbook publishers studied for the report can be found online. They include:

Still, the report notes that these companies often only offer a limited set of titles and have been able to capture only a fraction of the overall textbook market to date.

Upon issuing the report, officials at the Student Public Interest Research Groups offered some recommendations to mainstream publishers, requesting that they provide students with lower-cost alternatives. They also urged college administrators and faculty members to promote a “vibrant used book market.”

— Rob Capriccioso

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Comments

A better solution?

PIRG is quite good at criticizing — and criticizing, ad infinitum — the status quo. A solution that worked for me —

A series of myopic, pendantic social science courses that were taught by tenured professors who didn’t want to be there, with textbooks at $100+/each.

Being a very tight budget, I decided to “dis-assemble” the syllabus for key topics and found corresponding topic pages (especially MIT’s OCW at http://ocw.mit.edu) on Google. To insure topic alignment, I sat next to an MD’s spouse and we “shared” the official textbooks.

Not easy. But it worked. And it probably helped the learning process, because I was so “actively” involved with the topics (a lot more than the professors).

Art, at 9:20 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Let’s help

For one, we have to realize the world have changed. A lot of knowledge is free available through the web. On the other hand, we also should realize that making knowledge available to general public can vastly improve human race.

Several initiatives have moved in this direction: MIT’s OpenCourseWare, Rice University’s ‘New Model for Scholarly Publishing’ and ‘Federal Public Research Access Act’. On the web, the amount of guides and tech article is enormous. The Wikipedia and Wikibook also provide good resources.

The free of knowledge can push human race to compete on a higher level. In the past, due to resouces, the under-developed country will have limited access to knowledge and hinder their achievemnet. With the free access to advanced knowledge, these countries will compete more directly with developed countries. Developed countries are forced to re-exam their practices and refine their practices to stay competitive. Competitive aside, this also helps human race understand the equality better and move toward the world of single race: human race.

At the mean time, instructors should keep an open mind on the available material. There is no saying that only text book is the source of knowledge. We also ask professors generously donating their knowledge like a lot of people have done through personal web sites and blogs.

Duncan, at 10:05 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Faculty should do what they can....

It’s not surprising textbook prices are so high. The textbook market is skewed by the fact that the people who make the choices are not the ones who pay the prices. Typical “market-based” solutions won’t work—we need some extra effort on the part of instructors. I’ve been using Dover and other cheap editions for years now. For texts in the public domain—and this includes a LOT of literature—I photocopy and make course packs. High textbook prices are probably a significant contributor to poor students’ staying out of college, and those of us who claim to be concerned about equity and access ought to be helping out.

Am. Lit. teacher, Associate Prof, at 10:05 am EDT on August 17, 2006

publisher strategies

Publishers not only have few incentives to provide cheap alternatives, they deliberately practice price discrimination against North American students. See for instance http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/detail.asp?item=100000000118500where a text that sells for over $120 in the US is available for about $84. Note that the link specifies that this cheaper edition (which is I am sure identical to the US version) is not to be sold in the US or Canada.

JCO, Associate Prof., at 10:25 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Calculus textbooks are an industry unto themselves. A publisher’s representative told me a few years ago that the market for calculus textbooks is 675,000 copies/year, and that a new calculus text that doesn’t sell 20,000 copies in its first year is a failure. Typical calculus textbooks cost well over $100, and come complete with bells and whistles such as CDs, web sites, etc. (So the figures cited above mean that this is a $70 million annual market, and that a new book expects to bring in at least $2 million right away.) I would *love* to have publishers produce low-cost versions, but they don’t. I think this view is widely shared within the mathematical community.

And I’ll also point out another practice: Frequent text revisions that are not justified by significant content changes, but rather that are evidently made to kill the used book market.

math prof, at 10:40 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Beyond the developed world

if you think textbooks are expensive in the US, have a look at the developing world. For example, a $108 Biology textbook sells for $51 in Africa. The U.S. GNI per capita is $41,400, and the figure for Uganda is $250. Obviously, the developed world’s textbook business model does not meet the needs of those in the developing world. We need a publishing model that can meet the needs of Uganda and the many other countries that are not among the World Bank’s high-income countries (those with GNI per capita above $10,066).

We have started the global Text Project create a free library of 1,000 electronic textbooks for students in the developing world. The library will cover the range of topics typically encountered in the first two years of a university’s undergraduate programs.

The production model is a modification of the wiki approach to ensure high quality and authoritative texts.

Volunteers are welcome.

Rick Watson, at 10:45 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Many options

The focus on the few very large publishers is misplaced. There are literally hundreds of publishers who produce textbooks for college courses. The few large textbook houses have the resources to broadcast hundreds of free samples, hired an extensive sales force, and hold expensive cocktail parties at annual conferences. They also engage in extensive art programs for the books, pay to test and retest them with potential users, commission junior scholars to write teaching guides and develop test banks, and hire developmental editors to improve the writing. No wonder their books are so expensive— all these costs are included in the book’s price. Many publishers with smaller budgets produce textbooks that can be equally effective and are much less expensive. It does require more effort on the part of the instructor to find and test out these books since they don’t have the sales reps to chase after you. But plenty of options are available for the professor who has any interest in finding them.

Mitch Allen, Publisher at Left Coast Press, Inc., at 11:30 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Global pricing strategies

“Publishers .. deliberately practice price discrimination against North American students ..”

Excuse me — where’s your specific evidence?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/16/textbooks

Does the UK and Canada buy in bulk? Like with pharms? So the U.S. subsidizes pharms — AND textbooks?

” .. which is I am sure identical to the US version ..”

How do you know? Does the UK version have the same Q/A sections? For both student — AND instructor? What about additional CDs? Color printing?

Art, at 11:30 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Where’s the faculty in all of this?

This is an arena that the AAUP should seriously consider jumping into. I’d be interested to find out, for example, how much of a particular textbook faculty actually use in their courses. If the same educational outcomes (or even better ones) can be accomplished using portions of texts in course packets, or using digital documents through software like BlackBoard, then it would be a good first step at minimizing the cost to students.

As it stands, students—especially undergrads in intro courses—spend hundreds of dollars on books they never use and find that they’re worth very little when they re-sell them at the end of the semester.

AC, at 11:55 am EDT on August 17, 2006

Rick Watson’s Global Text Project

http://globaltext.org/

Duncan, at 12:40 pm EDT on August 17, 2006

High-Priced Textbooks

It’s always easier to change someone else’s business model than it is to change your own.

Textbook publishing is indeed expensive for publishers as well as for students. Publishing (whether print or digital) has overhead costs and publishers are responsible for making sure that they cover those costs.

The academic sector could easily dictate to textbook publishers if they chose to do so. The system continues because instructors are rewarded both financially and professionally when they publish. This isn’t just about bad publishers and whiny students — the faculty bears some responsibility here.

Instructors (and the institutional departments behind them) could refuse to adopt textbooks that are excessively priced. It would require work to fill the gap of educational materials that would be need to be created for student use, but given the current crop of available technologies, it is by no means an impossible task were institutions to work together. If you want to change the textbook system, change what happens in your own work environment. There’s enough blame here to go around.

Jill, at 1:05 pm EDT on August 17, 2006

low cost options

A couple that have worked:

1) Dover books. Sometimes the simple black and white printing takes some getting used to by the students.

2) Previous editions of current texts. Sometimes you can get unused leftovers at a cheap price, sometimes you have to get used copies. A cooperative bookstore is very helpful in locating these.

superhiker, at 1:10 pm EDT on August 17, 2006

Rent the Books

Students love it, parents love it !!Initial set-up costs for university are high but worth it in the long run to those paying the bills (students & parents). Book fees for 15 semester hours in one semester cost the student $128.25... About the cost of a single book, maybe two.

I think ours actually makes a profit too...

TextBookRental, at 2:10 pm EDT on August 17, 2006

textbooks

Here is what myself and other students did in graduate school. Assign one person to photocopy each text and make copies for all the other students who choose to participate. Then, reimburse the student. If software or a CD is included, just burn and distribute copies. It can be time consuming, but I would rather pay $25-50 per semester for books and materials than $400.

RS, a simple solution, at 6:05 pm EDT on August 17, 2006

Copy Textbooks, Burn CD’s?

So you are OK with violating copyright laws?

Craig C, political pundit at http://blogresponder.blogspot.com, at 8:20 am EDT on August 18, 2006

Publishers are expanding lower-cost options

One key point this article doesn’t discuss is the significant steps publishers already take to provide more inexpensive versions of many textbooks.

Publishers are listening to cost concerns and have expanded the number of lower-cost texts they make available, including split editions, electronic and online books, black-and-white editions and abbreviated texts. For example, there are nearly 300 course material options for teaching “Introductory Algebra.”

Ironically, the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) praised both alternative and online publishers, as well as major publishers such as Thomson Learning, Pearson Education, Houghton Mifflin and McGraw Hill, for offering lower-cost textbooks, including low-frills paper and online books.

As for e-books, each publisher works to provide the best content possible while still protecting the copyrighted materials contained in the electronic format. With Internet access available at nearly every higher education institution, usually in libraries, dorm rooms and common areas, online books are an important low-cost option for many students.

Publishers support freedom of choice and the availability of alternative textbooks. By providing the most modern, useful and up-to-date learning tools possible, we are helping students to get the most from their higher education experience.

Stacy Scarazzo, Asst. Director for Higher Education at Assoc. of American Publishers, at 4:25 pm EDT on August 18, 2006

I have some data from a similar discussion about a year ago

General Chemistry by Ebbing and Gammon, in Germany http://tinyurl.com/bz3pw 46.50 Euro (multiply by ~ 1.25 for $), L34.95 in the UK (hardcover) http://tinyurl.com/bjuvu $145 in the US http://tinyurl.com/blp4s, the paperback is not available (there are a few gray market imports) http://tinyurl.com/blp4s

Eli Rabett, at 6:00 am EDT on August 20, 2006

From a student’s point of view ALL textbooks are expensive. I have students just as upset at a $40.00 history book as they are at an $80-$100 book. They will delay buying the $20.00 custom just as long as the $35.00 conventional version. Yes, spiral books and workable texts may cost less. They also have pages that can be torn out and exercises that can we worked. I feel sorry for the students who buy these copies used only to find out part-way through the semester that they are missing information. You can’t return defective copies to eBay or Half.com but I am expected to make these good for the students. It has been suggested that publishers and instructors should provide information and material at no cost. When these same students have graduated I would like the programmers, doctors, CPA’s, auto mechanices and, yes, authors to give their work away for free. They should also deliberately price their work at below market prices to keep it all affordable.

Lisa, Textbook Buyer, at 11:45 am EST on November 3, 2006

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