Why do college textbooks cost so much?
First, let's look at some facts, because I tend to like reality.
Our dear friends at the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics publish a yearly Consumer Price Index (CPI), which lists relative prices of tons of consumer goods that people buy. One of these goods, I apologize for being bad at foreshadowing, is college textbooks.
Let's have a look, shall we?
Not to bog you down too much, I got data from 2005-2006 and 2002-2003. What we'll calculate is the average price difference from 2002 to 2006 of college textbooks.
Even just looking at the annual average differences from 2005 to 2006 we have a 6.4 percent jump in price of college textbooks. Also, just looking at the same difference from 2002 to 2003 we have a 6.5 percent increase in price of college textbooks. I think I just got pwned.
These scales are based off December 2001 price = 100, so I can correctly compare 2006 to 2002 and we can get the aggregate percent change in price.
The annual average Consumer price in 2002 for a college textbook was 104.2. The same price in 2006 was 128.0.
So, we set up our equation:
(128.0 - 104.2) / 104.2 = Percentage change from 2002 to 2006.
And the answer is... 22.84% increase in the price of college textbooks from 2002 to 2006.
No me gusta. So what is causing these high prices? Seems like demand might be a good place to check first. Are more people going to college?
Getting some quick data from U.S. Census Bureau we find that from 2002 to 2005 (latest they had data for) there was an increase of 743,000 students in undergraduate study.
The percent change is 5.5%.
Well gee Alex, doesn't 5.5% seem smaller than 22.84%? It certainly does. It certainly does.
So there is an obvious disparity here and one that is probably not easily fixed, if it should be fixed.
I think the most intuitive problem is that textbooks aren't a choice for most people. A professor will require you to purchase a certain textbook(s) and send you to the poor house, all in the name of education.
Normative opinion continues:
On principle, I buy the least amount of textbooks I can.
This means that I only buy a textbook when:
- Homework is required directly from the book.
- Quizzes/Tests are based directly from the book AND are not covered in class (sort of defeats the purpose of a professor but...)
- Papers must be written and cites must be used from the text.
You don't know me, but my first semester of my junior year I didn't buy any books and I got a 4.0 GPA. So just from that, without actually doing a statistical regression, I'm going to say that in my opinion buying the textbook for a class does not correlate with getting a better grade in said class.
For further information, check out an article by The Washington Post.
It has a great quote:
"We know that some kids are just not buying the books," she (Laura Nakoneczny, a spokeswoman for the National Association of College Bookstores), said. "And that defeats the whole purpose of a college education."Hasta la vista, readers!
