Inflation in education is serious business. In the mid-eighties a colleague bought a textbook in S. Korea (soft cover) for $5 -- including postage. The same textbook (hardcover) was then $65 -- plus tax, at the college bookstore.
In general books are much much cheaper in India & S. Korea than the very same books bought in USA. The same situation pretty much much obtains for medicines.
Is it "charge what the market will bear" or is the American buying public just plain dumb?
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From: Lugemwa FN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: ugnet_: Cost of college textbooks
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 10:58:49 -0700 (PDT)
Students Find $100 Textbooks Cost $50, Purchased OverseasOctober 21, 2003 By TAMAR LEWINRichard Sarkis and David Kinsley were juniors at WilliamsCollege, surfing the net for a cheap source for theireconomics textbook, when they discovered a little knowneconomic fact: the very same college textbooks used in theUnited States sell for half price - or less - in England.Just like prescription drugs, textbooks cost far lessoverseas than they do in the United States. The publishingindustry defends its pricing policies, saying that foreignsales would be impossible if book prices were not pegged tolocal market conditions.But many Americans do not see it that way. The NationalAssociation of College Stores has written to all theleading publishers asking them to end a practice they seeas an unfair to American students."We think it's frightening, and it's wrong, that the sameAmerican textbooks our stores buy here for $100 can beshipped in from some other country for $50," said
LauraNakon
eczny, a
spokeswoman for the association. "Itrepresents price-gouging of the American public generallyand college students in particular."But thanks to the Internet, more and more individualstudents and college bookstores are starting to ordertextbooks from abroad - and a few entrepreneurs, includingMr. Sarkis and his friends, have begun what are essentiallyarbitrage businesses to exploit the price differentials."We couldn't understand why what costs $120 here shouldcost $50-something there," said Mr. Sarkis, who, with Mr.Kinsley and another classmate, has spent three yearsbuilding a Web-based company, BookCentral.com, sellingtextbooks from abroad to students in the United States. "Itseemed so sleazy of the publishers. We were sure thatcollege students would be shocked and outraged if they knewabout the foreign prices. But it's been this big secret."That is changing, though. To the despair of the textbookpublishers who are still trying to block such sales, thereimporting of
American
texts
from overseas has become fareasier in recent years, thanks both to Internet sites thatoffer instant access to foreign book prices, and to a 1998Supreme Court ruling that federal copyright law does notprotect American manufacturers from having the productsthey arranged to sell overseas at a discount shipped backfor sale in the United States.Before the Supreme Court decision, Americans could not takeadvantage of the discounts abroad without violating thecopyright law.Now, however, "gray market" sales are taking off oncampuses.At one prestigious university, a sophomore imported 30biology books from England this fall and sold them outsidehis classroom for less than the campus-bookstore price,netting a $1,200 profit. Next semester, if all goes well,he plans to expand the operation."The only difference is that they say `internationaledition' in little print on the cover," said the student,who added that he was not certain whether his projectraised any legal issues, and t
herefore a
sked
that neitherhe nor his college be identified.At other colleges, Asian students have banded together totake advantage of textbook prices in Taiwan, Singapore andMalaysia, which are even lower than those in Europe.Many students, individually, have begun to compare thetextbook prices posted on American sites like Amazon.com,with the lower prices for the same books on foreign siteslike Amazon.co.uk.The differences are often significant: "LehningerPrinciples of Biochemistry, Third Edition," for example,lists for $146.15 on the American Amazon site, but can behad for $63.48, plus $8.05 shipping, from the British one.And "Linear System Theory and Design, Third Edition" is$110 in the United States, but $41.76, or $49.81 withshipping, in Britain.Many college bookstores, meanwhile, have taken matters intotheir own hands, arranging their own overseas purchases."I buy from Amazon.co.uk and from sources in the Far East,and I knew more and more students were doing the samething,
individua
lly,"
said Tom Frey, owner of theUniversity Bookstore at Purdue University, who sells thenew books from overseas at the same price as a usedAmerican book. "Then this fall, for the first time, the FedEx man told me that the students at the Indian Associationhere at Purdue had just gotten a delivery of 14 skids ofbooks, about 50 books each, from India. I think I'm losingabout 10 percent of my sales to overseas books."Relations between textbook publishers and collegebooksellers have been seriously roiled by the issue."This has become a very hot issue since last year, when itjust seemed to explode all of a sudden," said Ms.Nakoneczny, of the college store association. Theassociation's letter to the publishers warned that thepricing structure might be an antitrust violation. "Thesale of identical books to foreign buyers at pricessignificantly lower than to domestic buyers, while publiclystating that domestic prices are due to high costs, couldconstitute an unfair or deceptive
act," the
letter
said.While there is no longer protection in the federalcopyright law for the pricing differentials, the majorpublishers are still trying to stop the reimporting oftexts priced for foreign markets, mostly through contractlanguage forbidding foreign wholesalers to sell to Americandistributors. Some have placed stickers on covers, saying"International Edition RESTRICTED Not for Sale in NorthAmerica" or added the cover line "International StudentEdition."None of the three major textbook publishers - Pearson,McGraw Hill, and Thomson - would discuss why overseasprices are so much lower than domestic ones, referring allquestions to Allen Adler, the lawyer for the AmericanAssociation of Publishers."This is a season when textbook publishers get kickedaround a lot, and they're feeling vulnerable," Mr. Adlersaid. "The practice of selling U.S. products abroad atprices keyed to the local market is longstanding. It's notunusual, it doesn't violate public policy and it'scertainly
not illeg
al. But
publishers are still coming toterms with the dramatic change in the law."Mr. Adler contends that foreign textbook prices are peggedto the per capita income and economic conditions of thedestination countries - and that foreign sales are a boonto America's standing in the world, to foreign studentsseeking an American-quality education, and even to Americanconsumers, since each extra copy sold overseas, even at alow price, helps to spread the high costs of putting out anew textbook.As more and more customers turn to reimporting books, it isan open question how long the overseas price differentialswill last."We buy from the U.K., France, Israel and the Far East,"said Bob Crabb of the University of Minnesota Bookstores."As long as the publishers are offering books at less thanhalf the price that's available here, we'll take advantageof it. It's great for students. For publishers, themarginal costs of printing a few extra books and sellingthem overseas are very, very lo
w. But I w
ould
guess thatshortly, the sales here will begin eating into their U.S.sales in a serious way."Disgruntlement over textbook costs has been growing in theUnited States as prices have risen. Last month, SenatorCharles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, announced thatthe average New York college freshman and sophomore spendsmore than $900 a year on texts - 41 percent more than in1998 - and proposed a plan to make $1,000 of textbook coststax deductible. The same week, University of Wisconsinstudents demonstrated against high textbook prices and infavor of creating a textbook rental system.To be sure, textbook costs, however high, are only thefinal straw for American college students, whose tuitioncosts and fees have been rising rapidly. At Williams andother elite universities, for example, tuition, room andboard now tops $35,000 a year. In Britain, though, the costof tuition is largely borne by the government and studentspay much less.For example, tuition alone for undergra
duates at
Harvard
iscurrently $26,066 a year as compared with $1,840 at OxfordUniversity.In the United States, one in five students does not buy allthe required texts. And more and more, like Mr. Sarkis andMr. Kinsley, are willing to go to great lengths for acheaper alternative. "I got mad when I found out that ourlabor economics book was something like $90," said Mr.Kinsley, who, like Mr. Sarkis, graduated in 2001. "I didn'tthink I would read $90 worth in it, so I was determined tofind something cheaper, and I spent five hours searching onthe Web."Mr. Sarkis said Williams's campus bookstore made the highcosts all too visible. "They really rubbed it in," he said."If you were the highest spender of the day, they'd ringthis little bell and say they had a new winner, and giveyou a lollipop. I got the lollipop twice."http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/education/ 21BOOK.html?ex=1067736867&ei=1&en=bce063b9fa33710f----------------------------------------May L. LugemwaHarvard College
, Class of '04Now,
on the
road to freedom, I was pausing for a moment �could hear the voice of the water that had taught me to sing.-Pablo Neruda
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