Spring Break
Increasing price of textbooks puts burden on students
Adam Young
Issue date: 8/29/07 Section: News
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A teaching assistant, Green said he and other teaching assistants play a role in choosing the textbooks for the music for elementary school teachers class he teaches.
"We take price into consideration," Green said, "but a lot more than the actual price of the book, we consider the length and how applicable and useful it is."
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office Web site, www.gao.gov/, the cost of college textbooks increased at two times the rate of inflation between 1986 and 2004.
Though price is not necessarily the determining factor in what textbooks are chosen, Green said he remembers how expensive textbooks were when he was a undergraduate student in the early '90s.
"It seemed ridiculous even then, especially at campus bookstores because they're always way more (expensive)," he said. "Somebody's getting kickbacks, and I don't know who."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site, www.bls.gov, as of 2001, 64.4 cents out of every textbook dollar is retained by publishers, while 11.5 cents is forwarded to the authors of the textbooks, leaving 24.1 percent of the cost left over.
Chad Davenport, assistant store manager at Varsity Bookstore, said Varsity only keeps approximately 5 percent of the total cost of a textbook.
"We mark our books up 20 percent from what the publisher charges," he said. "At that point, we still have to pay for freight coming in, the labor to put the books on the shelf, electricity to keep the store open and credit card charges."
Davenport said the average incoming freshman spends approximately $900 for his or her first year of textbooks.
Two tips he said can help make sure students do not spend more than they have to on textbooks is to buy them used and make sure they need what they buy.
"I hear from students a lot of times that say they don't actually use the textbooks," Davenport said. "If you're actually going to use the textbooks, then paying a certain premium I don't think is a bad thing. But if they're not going to be used, then that's a problem."
Mason Moses, Student Government Association president, said the SGA worked with the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M to introduce legislation to remove local and state taxes from the sale of college textbooks, though the legislation was never passed.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 8
Hugo
posted 8/28/07 @ 11:16 PM CST
Craigslist has some good deals on books and if you have the time (hopefully) you can try the used bookstores like "Used Books". imho
MP
posted 8/28/07 @ 11:27 PM CST
Good article. I hope McGraw Hill goes down in an inferno of corporate scandal soon.
M
posted 8/29/07 @ 7:14 AM CST
11 law school textbooks, first semester: $775. And that's with the bookstore "forgetting" one book (and adding two that were unnecessary).
That's ridiculous. (Continued…)
james
posted 8/29/07 @ 9:01 AM CST
Here's one for you. Both B&N in the sub AND Double T had my mathbook listed as "College Algebra by Young" So I bought a copy off the net. Yesterday in class, we all had that book, and the "Teacher" (obviously not a PHD) had a different book. (Continued…)
Ashley Wikings
posted 8/30/07 @ 10:19 AM CST
one word -
bigwords.com
http://www.bigwords.com
you will be so happy when u check textbook prices that u will want to slap me.
Jessica Gordon
posted 8/30/07 @ 2:55 PM CST
You should also try Bigwords.com. They search a bunch of textbook websites to find the best prices. They also add coupons, discounts, and shipping and show you how to get the cheapest books possible. (Continued…)
Cary Wright
posted 9/07/07 @ 7:50 PM CST
Another cool alternative to the bookstore is www.bookrenter.com, a site that lets students rent their books out for a desired period of time for half off the retail price! By renting instead of buying, you don't have to deal with the hassle of selling your books back AND there's free return shipping!
Adam
posted 11/08/07 @ 6:37 PM CST
The best method I found in college (wow I feel old) to save money on textbooks was using a book price comparison search engine. The best one I know of today is http://www. (Continued…)
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