June 1, 2007

Next Chapter on Textbooks

The point is made clearly in a new federal report that responds to the rising cost of textbooks: Enacting legislation or regulatory measures that would force the hand of publishers, bookstores, colleges or faculty members is “counterproductive.”

Looking for a job?

See all 190 new postings

Browse all job listings:

Faculty: 2,608
Administrative: 2,143
Executive: 155
FEATURED EMPLOYERS

Not that the recommendation to avoid imposing price controls or mandating specific initiatives is surprising given publishers’ groups’ widely accepted argument that regulating their industry while taking a laissez-faire approach with other consumer markets would put the feds in a precarious spot.

The question of the appropriate federal role has lingered throughout the debate about textbook costs — and has been answered by a few.

In March, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced a textbook affordability bill that would require publishers to include the price of textbooks and supplemental material when providing information to faculty. It also calls on the companies to list a history of revisions and to offer textbooks and supplemental material in unbundled forms. (Many of the proposals mirror those listed in state bills.)

Last summer, Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), one of two lawmakers to call for the report, which is out today, and for a prior Government Accountability Office study of textbook costs, also took the legislative route. When the 109th Congress considered legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, Wu proposed an amendment that listed steps that all parties could take to provide more price transparency and options for students.

He pointed to the GAO report, which showed that college textbook prices nearly tripled between 1986 and 2004, rising 186 percent, or an average of 6 percent a year, during that time. By comparison, tuition and fees rose 7 percent a year and prices for all good rose an average of 3 percent a year in that span.

Both Durbin’s and Wu’s camps said they would like to push for textbook affordability language in pending Higher Education Act reauthorization bills — though spokeswomen in each case said it is too early to offer specific details.

But there are plenty of people who prefer lists of best practices and voluntary recommendations to binding resolutions. Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the California Republican and then-chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, along with Wu called last spring for a series of hearings and a final report that would yield cost-saving solutions for students.

“Turn the Page: Making College Textbooks More Affordable,” is the result of a yearlong study by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, a nonpartisan federal panel that advises Congress on issues of access.

The advisory group adopts a common framing of the issue. The textbook market, it says, is driven by supply rather than demand. Publishers set the price. Bookstores order the products. Students have little, if any, direct influence over the final cost, format and quality of the textbook. The common retort from publishers: Pay more attention to the faculty role. They are free to choose cheaper editions or unbundled material but resoundingly say educational value trumps price in their purchasing decisions.

Officials at both the Association of American Publishers and the Student Public Interest Research Groups, the latter having lobbied hard for changes in the textbook market, said they are pleased with the report’s explanation of the issues and lack of finger pointing.

“Blaming or punishing any stakeholder for market failure is not the answer,” the report says.

A major theme of the report is that the textbook market is largely moving online, with both faculty and students asking for e-versions of content. The committee’s centerpiece proposal is for a “national digital marketplace,” a Web-based platform coordinated and hosted by individual colleges where publishers and other content providers could sell and distribute their material. The idea is that a one-stop shop puts publishers on a level playing field because faculty and students can compare costs and content. (The hope is for the competition to spur price cuts.)

Modeled off a program about to launch at California State University, the project would include a clearinghouse that would process each transaction and oversee copyright issues. Faculty would be able to pick and choose among publishers’ material and create a printable or online course packet that could save students money. Faculty would make a single payment and students could also choose among items.

Each campus would have a customized page on the site that saves information about faculty purchases and class information after each use. The report says the online marketplace would also decrease marketing costs for publishers. It points out some potential roadblocks, including all involved agreeing on a single system and copyright policy, but says they are “clearly surmountable.”

Among the report’s other recommendations for decreasing student costs:

Expanding both textbook rental programs and buying consortiums that would strengthen the used book market.
Increasing no-cost content options and the use of “no-frills” textbooks and custom course packets.
Creating more textbook lending libraries.
Urging faculty to keep books longer, retain older editions and send information earlier to students and bookstores about what texts are being used.
Creating need-based grants or emergency vouchers that needy students could use to purchase material.

McKeon, now the House committee’s senior Republican member, said in a statement that the report provides “much-needed sunshine” on the textbook market and actions that some colleges and publishers have already taken to lower costs.

Wu, through a spokeswoman, said “the report didn’t get to some of the tough issues” but stopped short of giving details.

Dave Rosenfeld, national program director for the Student PIRGs, said at first look, the digital marketplace concept is “strong,” but that more information is needed.

He said while the report points out the inherent flaws in the textbook market and identifies several solutions, its advocacy of a strong used book market is weakened by its stance that a successful market automatically results in more new editions and higher prices — the assumption being that the used book market harms publishers’ bottom lines enough to force them to both increase prices and issue superfluous editions just to recoup their costs. (He said there is no evidence of this happening.)

The PIRGs “wholeheartedly agree” with the report that regulatory measures that attempt to impose price caps, regulate the kind of content publishers create or mandate certain kinds of faculty behavior would be counterproductive, Rosenfeld said. He does advocate regulation to require more price transparency on the part of publishers in the short-term.

“The report opens the door for Congress and [state] legislatures to play a role in creating incentives for higher education institutions to adopt many of the report’s proposals.… This, too, is a valid role for policy makers to play,” Rosenfeld said.

Both Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at AAP, and Charles Schmidt, a spokesman with the National Association of College Stores, said they are pleased with the scope of the report and the committee’s decision to avoid mandates and blanket policies. Schmidt said that while the digital marketplace concept is one possible solution, the committee seemed to favor that concept over others that would make more sense for colleges and students who are less Internet savvy and who have less computer access.

E-books often are more expensive than traditional texts, and the custom material created from the proposed Web site would have limited buyback potential,” he added. “[The marketplace] looks attractive at first, but if the goal is to help those in need, I’m not sure this is the silver bullet that the report is intimating,” Schmidt said.

Hildebrand said major questions about the idea need to be answered, such as who would pay for the expansive system and what the financial outcomes for each party would be.

But he said the committee has it right to focus on technology. “It’s a constructive conversation and it illustrates the complexity of the issue.”

— Elia Powers

Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.

Comments

Textbooks

Does anyone remember that it wasnt to long ago when many textbook manufactures were exposed for having incorrect material and fraudulently using professors and scientist names as authors and co authors of many of their books?? From grade school to University textbooks were all involved in this. Now considering that these same companies had no problem committing fraud such as this, what makes anyone really believe that they are being honest on the cost of textbooks? Do you think they all of the sudden became honest out of the goodness of their hearts? Would you trust a child rapist if he promised not to do it ever again?? I doubt it, so why would you trust these companies?

I hear all the time how over priced textbooks are from stories I am told by acquaintances who work for McGraw-Hill in sales , and its obscene the profit margin between cost of manufacture and marketing, and actual profit on school textbooks. The deals with universities and textbook bookstores are deals made in heaven for the textbook companies. Check for yourself. McGraw-Hill’s textbook division profits are up over 18% this quarter, and its their most profitable division out of the whole company.

DanH, at 3:00 pm EST on January 25, 2008

Focus on the Demand Side

Does anyone else think that most of the recommendations bear a striking resemblance to how we combat drug use in this country? The drug war has been ineffective because we consistently penalize the providers. Until you address the demand for drugs, whether that be through penalties or legalization/taxation, not much will be happen.

Similarly, until schools are required to give full details about total course costs, students will not be able to include pricing decisions in their institutional and course choices. Why can’t a college include the total cost of new books in its tuition estimates? Why can’t it do it on a course-by-course basis? Why can’t a college choose 3 books for a course from which a student could choose? Why can’t a college purchase the books and resell them to the student?

None of the solutions proposed will work until the student has a say in textbook choice. Voluntary, content collaboratives have been around for a long time, and they have NEVER worked. Textbook rental is a band-aid. If policy makers, colleges and students are serious about textbook prices, they would look to colleges to change the way they adopt textbooks, inform students of the prices, and distribute the books.

Anonymous, at 9:15 am EDT on June 1, 2007

One Approach to a Solution

For a collaborative model that is working, please check out the Global Text Project. It is engaging the worldwide academic and practitioner communities in the development of free, open-content textbooks, available over the Internet, in all undergraduate university disciplines. It is targeted at students in the developing world, where the cost of traditional textbooks is an even more serious problem. The proof of concept phase of the project, now underway, will produce two textbooks available in four languages. Several other books are in the pipeline. More information on Globaltext is available at http://globaltext.org.

Don McCubbrey, Clinical Professor at University of Denver, at 10:05 am EDT on June 1, 2007

Unbundled texts are just the latest scam put forward by publishers. For example, one text in my field sells for about $60 new, but can be sold back to the bookstore at the end of the semester for $35. The unbound paper version costs only $40 new, but cannot be sold back by the student because there is no used market for unbundled materials (there is no way to verify that the contents are still 100% complete). In reality, then, the “cheaper” unbound text ends up costing students $15 more than the bound version. Publishers love the idea, though, because it can kill off the used book market and boost their profits from new sales.

AProf, at 10:50 am EDT on June 1, 2007

Online multimedia textbooks

Along the lines of the Globaltext example, here are two posts I made on this issue (focused on K-12 but applicable to higher ed, I believe):

http://tinyurl.com/37wb6h

and

http://tinyurl.com/2sjrt3

Scott McLeod, Director, CASTLE at University of Minnesota, at 11:00 am EDT on June 1, 2007

Invest in Textbooks

Some students are whining about the cost of textbooks because they don’t value the knowledge contained therein, and they want to spend their money instead on the fashions, I-pod, cellphone and other gadgets they’re wearing while complaining. They know they probably won’t read or care about the knowledge, so why tolerate any cost to buy the container?

The lifetime income increase derived from a bachelor’s degree is over one million dollars. Even students who don’t want to learn from the books value money. They should be reminded that hundreds of dollars per year for college books now is a great investment for salary profit, long after those electronic gadgets are obsolete and the fashions are archaic.

Book Lover, at 11:25 am EDT on June 1, 2007

Demand Side?

In this business, the demand side is the student purchaser. Faculty can require a textbook, but students are the ones who decide whether to buy it or not. Even with bundled “auxiliary” materials, they can buy the access on-line without buying the book.

Why can’t colleges include textbook cost estimates along with tuition? They can and do. First place I looked had

http://admissions.msu.edu/finances/tuition.asp

Why is it only an estimate? Why is a proposal to require a clear statement of textbook costs for students before they even apply to college the silliest thing I have ever heard? Because the price of a textbook is not under the control of the college, and can change just like the price of gas can change. They also vary more between majors at a given school than they do for the same major at different schools. That request is pointless.

Why can’t it be done on a course-by-course basis? Because textbooks can vary between sections of the same course. Further, they may not be known until the start of the semester, whereas students register months earlier.

Why can’t a college ...? The textbooks are not chosen by the college, they are chosen by the person teaching the course. There are many instances where faculty list alternative textbooks, but one *must* be chosen as the official one so that the syllabus can have the specific information that people like Anonymous also expect from the faculty.

Do faculty care? Yes. But our biggest concern is with text-bloat and poor readability, because costs vary little and are out of our control ... and usually hard to discover during the textbook review process.

CCPhysicist, at 12:55 pm EDT on June 1, 2007

6%) rise

It’s interesting that the GAO report showed a 6% yearly rise in the cost of textbooks between 1986 and 2004, compared to a 7% rise in tuition and fees. One wonders why congress isn’t investigating those much larger and more significant increases.

UCProf, Prof, at 1:50 pm EDT on June 1, 2007

hidden revenues for universities

I have seen little mentioned about an often-hidden factor behind textbook costs — the profits made by universities from campus-bookstore sales.

For example, our campus has outsourced its campus bookstore operation to a well-known vendor with a contract that guarantees that 11% of all revenues (including textbook sales) are paid to the university — about a quarter of a million dollars each year at this campus.

Is anyone else aware of a similar arrangement on their campus?

Prof, at 4:05 pm EDT on June 1, 2007

Re: Demand Side

You prove my point. Why does a textbook, particularly for general education classes which comprise most of the enrollments, vary across sections? With large volumes, a school could drive much better pricing. Also, why does the professor need to choose the textbook for every class that he or she teaches, particularly for general education subjects? Why can’t this book choice be fixed for a longer term, say 3-10 years? If you can eliminate the variability of each professor making their own textbook decision, the college can drive better prices from a single publisher, solicit better pricing from multiple publishers, and keep costs constant over a defined period of time. Further, if the college was to go so far as to make the purchase themselves and resell or distribute the book such that the college could guarantee 100% sell through (as opposed to the percent that goes to the used book market), you could further drop the price of the book by 50% of so.

The problem is that every professor thinks that it is their right to pick their personal textbook. While this may make sense in courses with low enrollments or that require frequent updating, it does not make sense for most general education math, science, composition, and social sciences courses where economies of scale that derive from centralized and long-term decision making could dramatically reduce prices.

Anonymous, at 5:50 pm EDT on June 1, 2007

Textbook Costs

One should look at the bookstores first when talking about prices. They have a margin of about 25% on average for the books they sell. For instance at a particular bookstore they are selling a book for over $160 when their price from the publisher was only about $120. Now if the professor was to use a custom book the price would be even less but the bookstore will try to talk that professor out of it because they won’t be able to sell the normal edition back on the open market. Now not every bookstore is like this but most of them are.

Now if you dig deep enough you will find most publishers offer textbooks on their own websites but are forced to sell them at bookstore prices instead of selling them directly to the students at list price. The reason behind this is the bookstore assocations that have forced the publishers to do this. They don’t want to lose their business to the publishers or be forced to lower their prices. Until the students stand up and demand this then the bookstores will always hold the upper hand.

Another option for the students are E-Books that are usually 50% less then the print copy. Until more professors stand up and put this in front of their students this market will not grow. This is an area where professors can really make a difference if they are that worried about cost. Just give the students the options and they will decide on what they want. No longer can the student complain about the price. Then the bookstores will be forced to change up their prices in order to compete with the digital world.

If everyone would just work together then the costs issues can be resolved. The bookstores need to back off on their margins and the schools need to stop using the bookstores as a profit factory where they can continue to rip the students off. Education is costly and no matter where the students look they will see their university or college digging their hands into the cookie jar. They have overpaid most of their professors (there are still a number that are underpaid) and then they are forced to find that money somewhere. Now the athletic departments will not share their profits so the school is forced into a corner. So where do they turn?? You guessed it the students!! Everywhere the student turns they are charged for something that they don’t agree with or even need. And the easiest way to make that money back is through textbooks. Every student needs to have them so it is an easy way for them to make money.

So when the publishers come out with their own websites to sell directly to the students they are forced to sell them at the average bookstore margin in order not to offend any of their bookstores or universities. This is where the student keeps getting screwed and then they turn to Amazon or somewhere else where neither the bookstore or the publisher sees any of the money.

If everyone could work together and it starts with the bookstores and the universities then the students would be better off. The government doesn’t need to get involved at all unless the schools decide to take their hand out of the cookie jars and allow the students to have the power to purchase their books at list price instead of retail price. Now this is America so it will never happen but I can dream about it.

Fair Prices for the Students, at 12:35 am EDT on June 2, 2007

Overpaid?

“They have overpaid most of their professors”

Are you friggin out of your mind!?

You need to spend a little time researching the salaries of the various and sundry “Assistants to the Associate Vice Provost of Student Educational Endeavors and Learning Resources Allotment.”

Yeeesh.

Cacambo, at 7:35 am EDT on June 3, 2007

Scam, or financial incentive?

I just returned from my daughter’s college orientation with an uneasy feeling after hearing their recommendations for acquiring her textbooks. We normally do a lot of comparison shopping for most of the goods we purchase, but that option was discouraged both by both student and faculty presenters. They emphasized the simplicity of using their campus bookstore for determining best pricing (used vs. new, depending on availability) and “bundling” the entire package, based on the student’s classes, ready to be picked up by the student before the first day, and charged to a credit card. No hands-on necessary, no comparison shopping — just take their word that you got the best deal out there. There are two off-campus bookstores walking distance who have posted “lowest guaranteed prices” signs outside. I wondered how they survive if parents and students are advised to take the “great deal” at the campus bookstore, which is a national bookstore chain contracted with them? Most parents and students will be inclined to use what’s recommended by the college. Now I understand that there is financial incentive for them to do that, but they should be honest and forthcoming about that information at the time they present it.

Freshman mom, at 9:00 pm EDT on June 6, 2007

Money and Supply

The harshest critics of textbook pricing and marketing have possibly not done all of the math, nor have they considered the true costs of writing, editing, compositing, producing, and marketing these books.

As a textbook author, I’d like to point out that every time someone buys a used copy of a textbook, the publisher and author make no money—no profits, ergo, no royalties. Every time a student buys a new copy of a textbook, the author sees a small percentage of the price the bookstore paid before markup. Example: if 100 new copies of a $50 textbook (bookstore price) are sold next semester, chances are the author was paid $400 in royalties (before taxes—royalties must be claimed as income). Spread over the time it took to propose, outline, research, organize, write, edit, proof, revise, and fact-check the book, probably the author just saw about ten cents per hour for her labor while producing that book. Obviously, she hopes more than 100 copies of this first edition will be sold!

But meanwhile, as these 100 copies are being purchased by students who complain about the “high” cost, the author has already been told to start work on the second edition (she is now hoping that sales pick up drastically, because she’s worn out the computer she bought to write the first edition).

It is probably safe to say that most faculty (myself included) tend to order books written and edited by academic experts in our disciplines. However, textbooks sometimes do little to advance the academic careers of their authors. Some institutions even discount textbook publications in faculty tenure packets—a textbook is not “academic” enough to count as Professionnal Development.

Therefore, I would encourage those who feel outraged by the pricing and marketing of textbooks to consider that textbooks literally do not grow on trees. People with knowledge, expertise, and talent have to write them. Their time and work are rarely compensated during the writing—which can take literally years of typing late into the night after lecturing and grading all day. College textbooks must go through rigorous peer review, often several rounds, which can take weeks. Editing, proofing, compositing, printing, graphics, compantion web sites, supplemental print and digital materials—all of the high-demand features of this “meda-oriented” age—these cost time, money, talent, and effort.

Every time I hear the call for cheap, used, non-updated textbooks written by “overpaid” academics, I cringe. Faculty in the Liberal Arts are paid about the same as the average flight attendant.

Pardon this rant, but it seems that the pricing of textbooks is still a great bargain compared to the price of ignorance. Students who sell back all of their books at the end of every term, regardless of the possible benefits of keeping and re-reading them, are making the bigger statement about the value of knowledge and education than are the publishers and authors.

CeeJ, Dr. at MWSU, at 1:45 pm EDT on June 18, 2007

At What Cost?

The harshest critics of textbook pricing and marketing sometimes appear not to have done all the math, nor have they considered the true costs of writing, editing, compositing, producing, and marketing these books.

Every time I hear the call for cheap, used, non-updated textbooks written by “overpaid” academics, I cringe. Faculty in the Liberal Arts are paid about the same as the average flight attendant.

CJ, Dr. at MWSU, at 2:20 pm EDT on June 18, 2007

Jobs Related to Next Chapter on Textbooks

or search for jobs directly.

Publications and Strategic Communications Production Manager
Vanderbilt University

Publications and Strategic Communications Production Manager Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Vanderbilt University ... see job

Editor
InsideTrack

Start up opportunity with innovative services company! We need a savvy writer to help us polish our messages see job

Text Marketing Manager
Yale University

General Purpose
Expand, enhance, and support the sales of Yale University Press’s text and course books — ... see job

Publishing Specialist (Publication & Educational Support)
University of Idaho

Publishing Specialist (Publication & Educational Support) College of Law Open for Recruitment: August 15, 2008 — August 31, ... see job