Most new college students are stunned by the cost of textbooks. I know that when I arrived on campus, back in the olden days, I was thinking that a textbook would cost $15 or $20 – you know, like a good hardcover at a regular bookstore. And I was sure I could get them even cheaper at Crown Books or a used bookstore.
Oh, what a fool I was!
As an instructor, I usually get textbooks for free from the publisher sales reps. On occasion, I need to buy one for some side project, and then I either go through BookByte or Amazon. For example, I’m trying to learn photography, so I recently bought a used (and old) version of a standard college photography textbook from BookByte to use with Stanford’s online photography course.
And, as an instructor, I try to consider textbook costs when assigning books. However, I still expect students to buy and read the damn book – I get really annoyed when people want to know if they need to buy it. And yet, I know why they ask that.
I also get annoyed when people need extensions because they are trying to buy the book cheap and it hasn’t arrived yet. And yet, I know why they do it.
A college student could easily spend $1500 a semester on texts, especially if bought all new. That’s outrageous. Buying used probably shaves $300 off of that, and selling back at the end of the semester probably saves another $300. (Not all books are available used, and not all books will be repurchased.) You’re left with $900 – a hefty bill.
Yes, there are things you can do: buy paperback or loose-leaf versions that can’t be sold back, but cost a lot less. Buy e-books – many major textbooks have e-book editions these days. Old editions often have almost the same material; although they usually can’t be sold back, they tend to be dirt cheap. (You can go to Amazon’s “Look Inside This Book” feature to get the table of contents of the new edition to adjust your syllabus. I don’t care if students have old textbooks, but they are responsible for finding out the differences.) There’s a thriving gray market in international editions of textbooks, too.
For literature classes, go to a thrift store first. My sister was an English major, and I remember one afternoon, she and I hung out at Goodwill and found all but three of her assigned books for the entire semester. Entire bill? $10. That won’t help you if your major is biology. Likewise, public domain books are available online for free. Yes, I know, the paperback editions of classics are cheap, but it all adds up.
If you have a friend or relative who is a college student, consider giving a gift certificate to the campus bookstore for birthdays, holidays, and graduation presents. That way, you can help the student pay for books.
I don’t understand why textbooks cost so much. I am an author, I have done textbook editing, but I don’t get it. I don’t need reps calling on me, and the math of annuity calculation doesn’t change from year to year. I think there’s a sense that a) students are a captive audience and have to pay what it costs; and b) there’s some expected profit per head that has to be made, and the company will make it somehow or another. Also, it is expensive to create texts for niche, upper-level classes where the information is esoteric and the enrollment is likely to be small. That’s not the case for undergraduate business texts, but, hey – it’s all about the cross-subsidy.
I encourage faculty members to find out what their textbooks cost. If possible, use public domain works or links to articles online. I teach one class on business and American culture that uses mostly public domain readings. It will be harder to work out a textbook-free angle for corporation finance, but that’s my long-term goal.
Bottom line: textbooks cost a fortune, and most of the methods students try to use to save costs don’t save big money because of how the industry is structured. They do save some money, though, and every little bit helps.
