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When Books Break the Bank
September 16, 2003
By TAMAR LEWIN
When Jill Thompson, a junior at Barnard College, went to
the bookstore recently and found that her biology text cost
$120, she balked, put the book down and went to her
computer to look for a cheaper alternative.
"With the tuition we pay, it's a lot to come up with more
than $100 for a biology book," said Ms. Thompson, a
psychology major from New Hampshire. Searching dogears.net,
she found a used copy of the required text for $69.
In the past two decades, the price of textbooks has soared.
The price of educational books and supplies has risen 238
percent, while the price of consumer goods over all has
increased only 51 percent, according to the Consumer Price
Index. At four-year private colleges, the College Board
found, students spent an average of $807 on books last
year. Some students, particularly science and math majors,
spent that much in one semester.
At the same time, more books are being sold in
shrink-wrapped bundles with supplements that a student may
not need but must pay for, such as a study guide,
dictionary or CD-ROM.
But more and more, students are fighting back, finding ways
to reduce the costs. They are sharing books, using library
copies or going online to find cheap used copies. Indeed,
about 20 percent no longer buy all their required texts,
according to the National Association of College Stores.
And that percentage is growing fast enough to worry both
textbook publishers and college bookstores.
"When we first looked at it five years ago, it was about 15
percent, but it's trending up about a percent a year," said
Laura Nakoneczny, a spokeswoman for the association. The
group ran an unsuccessful program last year in which
professors worked with bookstores at a dozen colleges to
try to increase the percentage of students who buy assigned
texts.
Publishers say the prices of textbooks simply reflect the
high costs of producing college texts. Most are niche
products, written for a relatively small audience. To stay
up to date - and, critics say, to force students to buy new
books - publishers frequently bring out new editions,
further limiting sales of used books.
But some legislators are not buying the publishers'
argument.
Last year, in response to complaints from students at
Pasadena City College, Carol Liu, chairwoman of the
California State Assembly's Higher Education Committee,
held hearings on the issue, but none of the invited
textbook publishers showed up. Ms. Liu's staff is exploring
the possibility of using the collective buying power of
California's state colleges and universities to negotiate
with publishers for lower prices.
Students like Ms. Thompson, meanwhile, are finding their
own ways around high book costs.
"When I was a scared freshman, I bought every single book,"
said Ms. Thompson, 20. "By last year, I was more relaxed.
There was one religion class where I didn't buy a single
book. I relied on the copies on reserve at the library,
and, ironically, that was the class where I got the best
grade, maybe because having to do the reading at the
library forced me into better time management."
Many freshmen seem to end up buying everything they are
assigned - even when they have serious sticker shock at the
college bookstore.
"I was so surprised," said Thomas Blair, a Columbia
freshman emerging from the bookstore with a heavy bag. "The
calculus book cost $144. The chemistry book, with the study
guide and the answer book, cost $178. I called my dad and
said I was going to run out of money a lot sooner than I
thought."
Part of the problem is that a growing proportion of texts,
like Mr. Blair's chemistry book, now come bundled with
study guides, CD-ROM's, instructions providing access to a
special Web site, answer books or other supplements that
drive the price up and make it less likely that students
will find cheaper used versions.
"We began seeing bundles about three years ago, and this
year we're seeing a lot more," said Ken Bowers, who runs
the bookstore at the University of California at Santa
Barbara. "The professors decide which pieces to include,
and the bundles arrive, shrink-wrapped together. It's sold
on the premise that it's a value to the student. But it
also makes it possible to charge more, and has the effect
of making it more difficult for students to get used
books."
Each new bundle gets an International Standard Book Number,
the identification number assigned to every book.
Professors place their orders using that number, and
bookstores buy back and resell only copies with the numbers
the professors request. So when professors order a new
bundle, most bookstores do not sell used versions - and
only rarely do stores sell the component pieces separately.
At the bookstore at City College of New York, the ninth
edition of "Chemistry, the Central Science" comes in a
$139.25 bundle with no fewer than five supplements: a "math
review toolkit," a CD-ROM, a student lecture notebook and
booklet of solutions to a set of exercises, and a "peer-led
team learning" book.
Chemistry texts tend to be the most pricey. For Santa
Barbara's Organic Chemistry 109A course, taught by Paula
Bruice, the required text - written, not coincidentally, by
Professor Bruice - is $170, bundled with a study guide.
"The bookstore carries the bundle because that's cheaper
for students who want to buy both," Professor Bruice said,
adding that she and her colleagues tried to be sensitive to
students' wallets. "If students want to buy just the text,
very frequently they do that online or some other way."
Another chemistry text, "Solid State Chemistry and its
Applications," sells for $275 at the Santa Barbara store.
Over all, science texts - and those for economics, computer
and engineering courses - are the most likely to cost more
than $100.
Humanities texts are generally cheaper, and much less
likely to be bundled: French literature classes, for
example, may ask for only an $8 copy of class="Movie" idsrc="nyt_ttl"
value="30674;30675;30676;143601;269361;233815">"Madame
Bovary" and a $9 copy of class="Movie" idsrc="nyt_ttl" value="135290">"The
Stranger."
According to the National Association of College Stores,
for every dollar the student pays for a textbook, 57 cents
go toward the publisher's costs, and the publisher's
after-tax profit is 7 cents. Typically, the author earns
about 12 cents, and the bookstore receives about 18 cents
for personnel and administrative costs, and less than 5
cents in pretax profits.
"An enormous amount of thought and expertise and technology
go into the production of an organic chemistry text with
the extraordinary four-color drawings the professors
demand," said Judith Platt, a spokeswoman for the
Association of American Publishers. "It's very different
from a novel with a list price of $30."
A few schools keep book costs down by offering textbook
rental services. At Eastern Illinois University in
Charleston, Ill., for example, students pay $7.95 per
credit hour to rent basic texts, buying only the workbooks.
Southeastern Louisiana University, Central Missouri State
University and some University of Wisconsin campuses have
similar plans. While such plans save money, they have their
own downsides: students are not allowed to write in their
books, and, generally, professors must commit to using the
same text for three years.
At most schools, though, students fend for themselves.
Many now go online to find used copies of their texts
through Amazon, Barnes & Noble or one of a host of Web
businesses - eCampus.com, half.com, textbookx.com and
VarsityBooks.com - that have sprung up to fill the niche.
But some students said that last-minute searches resulted
in modest savings that were not worth the delay.
Others save by sharing.
"Last year I shared some books
with my roommate," said Hannah Raymond, a Barnard student,
adding that this year, although no longer roommates, they
would still share a book.
Many students say they are resigned to buying whatever text
they are assigned.
"You got to do what you got to do," said Andrew Graeve, a
Columbia junior who emerged from the bookstore with a
$125.70 volume on econometric models and a $118 financial
accounting book.
Still, he counted himself lucky: he found the accounting
text sold separately, without the study guide and CD-ROM
that came in the $130 bundle.
"I don't use study guides or manuals, so they're just a
waste of my money," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/nyregion/16BOOK.html?ex=1064826426&ei=1&en=a7316535f91a6b83
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