How to End the Madness of Overpriced Textbooks

I know I shouldn’t do it, but I can’t help myself. At the beginning of each quarter, when last-minute schedule changes and procrastination leave me in a textbook-searching frenzy, the bookstore seductively calls my name as I pass by on my way to Benson. 

But every time, I submit to its convenience, only to feel my soul shrivel up a little at the sight of the egregiously priced textbooks. I sulk away, defeated and empty-handed, and try my luck on Amazon, or Chegg, or whatever online service seems to be the perfect marriage of cheap but reputable. 

For better or for worse, I’m not the only one finding myself in this predicament. According to the magazine Campus Technology, only 25 percent of students buy new textbooks, and it’s clear why. If I add up the prices of my textbooks for this quarter, it comes out to $600. That’s for four courses. Assuming textbook costs are relatively consistent each quarter, that’s around $1,800 every year. 

But even the cheapest option at the bookstore is expensive—$297.75 for this quarter, or around $900 per year. For a full-time college student already paying large sums in tuition, that’s a lot of money. So how did this happen—why are college textbooks so expensive?

The market for textbooks has often been compared to the market for prescription drugs. The professor assigning the reading, like a doctor prescribing medication, is not the one buying the product (so they have little real incentive to choose cheaper options). Preston McAfee, an economics professor at CalTech, used both textbooks and prescription drugs as examples of what economists call “moral hazards”—situations where one party takes more risks because someone else bears the costs.

Secondly, the demand for college textbooks is inelastic, just as it is for medication. Meaning, students have to buy the product no matter how expensive it is. The consequence of not doing so is suffering from an illness, or failing a class. 

While the core market characteristics for textbooks have remained the same over the years, they have seen a gargantuan increase in price. Since 1980, the price of textbooks has increased 812 percent—faster than medical services, which have seen a 575 percent increase, new home costs and the consumer price index itself (which has only increased 250 percent). There are a couple of contributing factors. 

First, in recent years, revision cycles have become increasingly shorter. Nearly identical new editions of textbooks are released every couple of years. This process undermines the used textbook market, forcing students to buy newer, more expensive versions. As well, five publishers control 80 percent of the market for textbooks. They make billions each year and have been accused of acting like a cartel in their restriction of competition and high prices. 

Second, textbooks bundled with access codes to online practice, videos and content are on the rise—again making it impossible to buy used books (even if a student can buy a used book and purchase the code separately, the code itself can be upwards of $100). This software makes assigning and grading homework easier for teachers at the cost of an extra $100 for students. 

The solution to this problem seems simple—instructors should simply opt for non-bundled textbooks. But the issue is more deeply rooted. 

With more and more adjunct lecturers replacing tenured full-time staff, bundled textbooks loaded with supplementary material and automatically graded practice sets become a solution for under-paid, overworked lecturers who have little time to craft an entire curriculum. Unfortunately, the usage of expensive software bundled with textbooks is just one consequence of the increasing number of adjunct staff members. 

Textbooks are important. For STEM-focused classes, they are often the backbone of the course. And in any discipline, engaging with works of scholarship is an important part of the learning process. But it can’t go on like it has been; students shouldn’t have to spend their entire paycheck on a few textbooks, and they shouldn’t be forced to resort to illegal online alternatives or scramble last-minute to borrow a book the night before an exam. 

We need a new system. Aside from encouraging professors to assign older editions that students can find used, some schools have started using open-source educational materials instead of traditional textbooks. This includes licensed texts and other digital media. 

A system like this would take the pressure off of students to locate cheaper options, while still providing a breadth of scholarship for students to interact with.

Carolyn Kuimelis is a sophomore economics major.