College textbooks, everyone needs to get them. No one likes getting them, but they've become a staple of higher education, so much so that my parent's have constantly been telling me to save every cent that I can in effort to afford them. In this semester alone, I've spent almost my entire budget that I had saved over winter break and I'm very positive that some other students are in very similar situation.
After doing some research, there are several estimates on how much each student will spend on average per year on textbooks. Depending on the courses a student takes, it can be anywhere between $665 a year or up to $1,000 a year. Now, while not in college I do work a well-paying job back in my hometown. I do get some spending money, but as always, I do end up spending most of this on books. I bring this up for a reason. First, not everyone has a job, and even if they have a job they could barely have any hours, let alone have a decent wage. Some students will need to work throughout the semester, while trying to juggle several classes!
One of the biggest reasons why college students are constantly being referred to as broke is because of these textbooks. The root of this problem with the textbooks is in the publishers. As any academic institution, they want to have the most update information and equipment when it comes to education. As such, each year publishers release new versions of the textbooks for the students and professors to learn from. More often than not these revisions are not needed. Especially when one thinks about it, has this particular subject changed so much over the course of this past year that it requires a new edition? For every single subject too? It might have changed it for some, but every single one? I think it's almost impossible for it all to have changed.
Publishers do this in order to increase their profits. In an article written by Gregory Bresiger of the New York Post that focused on this topic and that interviewed Alex Neal, the CEO of Campusbooks.com said the following.
“Since the publishers don’t make any money off used-book sales, their business model is to make the old editions obsolete and force you to buy a new book.”
The market for textbooks is almost a monopoly, whereas very few publishers control these books. As such, they don't need to worry about giving the student a good deal, their pricing methods are entirely profit focused.
However, some people are definitely trying to change things. Some of our congressmen and women are making an effort to potentially make our books free. While some courses potentially could starting using an open textbook. An open textbook is basically a free online version of quality textbooks. That's what the bill proposed by congress is trying to do, get more open textbooks onto this website and other markets to make it easier for college students across the country.
College is already expensive to begin with, and with tuition still slowly rising for many universities, it's becoming a massive place for young adults to gather a massive amount of debt to start out of their young lives with. Ultimately, textbooks prices have become another symptom of the growing debt crisis in america.
