Publishers profit from pricey books
By Koren Temple
They come in every subject, from biology to chemistry to political science. You can stack them or shove them under your bed where they will likely collect dust. You will most likely never use them again in your lifetime or you might not even open them to begin with.
And, despite their lack of versatility, they manage to cause a permanent dent in your bank account.
They are textbooks. And they are not getting any cheaper.
According to a survey conducted by the California Student Public Interest Research Group, college students in California and Oregon spent an average of $898 on new and used textbooks during the 2003-2004 school year, compared to $642 in 1996-1997.
At Santa Clara, these numbers translate to students spending an average of $300 a quarter on textbooks.
Can you say "ridiculous"?
It's bad enough that tuition rates at Santa Clara are increasing by seven percent a year, but to have books increase by 35.1 percent from 1998 levels is an atrocity to the very principles education represents.
Publishing companies are treating students like puppets, educators like pawns, and education like a commodity.
How do they do this, you ask?
Well, every few years, manufacturing and publishing companies pull their best scheme ever: they come out with new editions. This, my friends, equates to more profit. Since a new book costs an average of $102.44, publishers are making a $38.54 killing because used books on average only cost $64.80.
Then comes another phenomenon which really sticks it to students. This is called "turnover." Once the publishers create these perfectly new editions, the used books become obsolete, and voila, they are no more.
This explains why when you try to sell back your books you get shafted, and those textbooks you paid a few hundred dollars for disappear under your bed forever.
And really, do new editions make much of a difference? All they do is add in a new chart, update a picture or two, and maybe even rephrase a sentence.
The material is still the same and the main points are still the same; the only difference is a shiny new cover and a triple digit price tag.
But students aren't the only victims in this game of textbook roulette; professors also get caught in the plows of manufacturing gibberish.
They are sent "cool" pamphlets and informational brochures on these new editions which are supposed to be informative.
Right. If anything, professors are blind-sided because those pamphlets usually leave out a few important elements, such as a price and whether or not the books will be replaced with a new edition any time soon.
This should be considered deceptive advertising by the textbook manufacturers instead of sticking the professors with the blame. In many cases, these new books probably aren't even be worth the price.
Professors usually aren't even told whether the books they order are bundled with ridiculously superfluous supplementary material, which is doubtlessly unneeded to help someone that has a Ph.D. teach a class.
The technique of bundling makes books even more expensive and 65 percent of college educators don't even use the extra material anyway.
Textbooks are supposed to supplement the course; not create one on its own. Who needs CDs, workbooks and 3-D graphics? I'm sure most students could go without color and glossy pages as long as we're save a few bucks.
So, to the manufactures and publishers that take a combined 53 cents of our every dollar: pick up one of those books you gleefully process every day. Maybe you'll learn about the online textbooks that are becoming a new craze.
*Ã Ã Contact Koren Temple at (408)551-1918 or at ktemple@scu.edu