Students spend $900 for textbooks every year

[Rollergirl2001]

From yahoo.com:
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. - College freshman Amy Connolly knows not to judge a book by its cover. Instead, she judges the newest Calculus 101 text by what's inside: a CD-ROM, flashy color photographs and a bubble-wrapped study manual. All those extras bring the price tag to $126, she says.


"The textbook companies are adding bells and whistles that students don't need — it's making the cost of education unaffordable," said Connolly, a student at Portland State University.


A study spearheaded by students in Oregon and California found that the cost of textbooks has skyrocketed because of the bundling of ancillary products like CD-ROMs. It also claims that publishers roll out new editions year after year, forcing students to buy new books although the content scarcely changes.


Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers and a former congresswoman, said the report was one-sided and flawed.


Fifteen members of Congress have asked for an investigation into the pricing policies of U.S textbook publishers. The Government Accounting Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress, has given the request high priority, said Cornelia Ashby, the director of the office's education branch.


The study was conducted by the California Student Public Interest Research Group, Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group and the OSPIRG Foundation. The groups conducted a survey of the most widely assigned books in the fall of 2003 at 10 public colleges in Oregon and California.


According to the study, college students today spend about $900 on textbooks every year. On average, textbook publishers keep books on the shelf for 3 1/2 years before issuing a new one. Over half of faculty members surveyed said the new editions are "rarely" to "never" justified.


"Calculus hasn't changed much since Isaac Newton. The question needs to be asked — do we really need a new edition every few years?" said U.S. Rep. David Wu, an Oregon Democrat who was the first lawmaker to ask for the investigation last fall.


Textbook publishers say the students' recommendations, which include a five-year minimum before the release of a new edition, fail to take the need for updates into account.


"Imagine a government textbook that had Bill Clinton (news - web sites) as president. Or an accounting textbook that didn't include Enron. Or a biology textbook that didn't have cloning or stem cell research. The world changes so fast," said Jessica Dee Rohm, spokeswoman for Thomson Learning, the Stamford, Conn.-based textbook giant.


Publishers say that even if the subject is calculus or art history, and by nature doesn't change as radically as genetics, the revised editions are always different.


"We have a revision diary that's hundreds of pages long for that book — we invested $300,000 of research to change it," said Rohm, referring to the Calculus 101 book that Connolly held up at a news conference in Portland on Wednesday.


Rohm said that the information age has changed everything, and the CD-ROM is only the tip of the iceberg in staying on top of that trend.


The spiraling price of textbooks has led to all sorts of strategies to reduce the financial hit, said Merriah Fairchild of the California Student Public Interest Research Group.


"I know stories of students pooling together to buy a single book — students just can't afford it anymore," Fairchild said.

I have spend that much on books for an academic year. The best time for cheap books is the Spring Semester, because there are a lot of used books at that time. In the Fall Semester, there are many new books. I remember that in my sophmore year, I have spent $130 on my French book (which include two workbooks and a CD-ROM) and $110 on my Spanish book (which includes a woorkbook and CD-ROM). I think that the reason why books are expensive is because of the CD-ROMs.

[WCUgirl]

I didn't have that problem! We had a textbook rental fee of like $30 for the semester...then turned them back in at the end. Didn't have to keep useless books for general ed. classes. Depending on your major though, you had to buy supplementary texts. And of course you had the option to buy the book at the end of the semester.

[Glitter650]

I know I spent a mint on USED textbooks ony to sell them back and get less than half the price (or nothing) and then have them sell them back to people at the same price I paid. It sucks....

[RACooper]

Wow... $900 only.... I wish I had that luxury.....

Unfortuantely book prices jumped by 50%+ around two years ago here in Canada, and used books for some programs are understandably scarce. I usually spend around $1400 to $1600 on books, because unfortunately people in my programs don't give up their books.... my theory is that they keep them as trophies...

[Kevin]

Try ebay. You can generally find some pretty decent deals there on textbooks.

California colleges already have a fee hike in place startingthis past semester and now the increase in book prices. I spent close to $900 in one semester for my law books for paralegal studies at a jr c ollege. just imagaine what they would be like if they were law books at a law school here in california. Not even grant or loan money is covering it any more. It is fricken Pathetic.

[Glitter650]

Yeah the tuition fee increases suck... but California still has the cheapest state education in the country... some states don't even have a JR. college system... so I try not to complain too hard...

[sairose]

Man, for my Music History class, I spent almost 500 bucks on the required materials!

[Munchkin03]

$900/year for textbooks sounds like a dream.

Us architecture students--in undergrad OR grad--can pay upwards of $1,000 a SEMESTER for studio supplies; the first semesters are devoted to buying basics like rulers, a drafting board, getting basic computer programs like AutoCAD, Vectorworks, etc. The subsequent ones are all about model supplies, which get used up very quickly.

And that's STILL on top of buying books for classes other than studio.

[AOIIsilver]

Ditto...
I have paid $1,500 PER SEMESTER!!!
Silver

[Rollergirl2001]

bump

Well, I have spent $250 on ecampus for some of my books. IfI were to spend at the bookstore, then I would have paid $300. For example, for my History of Psychology book, I would have spent $105 plus tax. But at e-campus, I've spent $99.

Overall, I've spent close to $500. If I were to go to the bookstore, I would have spent $600. The worst part about this is that in the fall semester, where there are a whole lot of new book and very few used.

[KSUViolet06]

I'm taking 18 credit hours right now and I spent about $450 on books for them. I think that's the most I've spent on books in college so far. I usually average around $300.

[Buttonz]

I';m taking 19.5 credits and I spent $350 at the campus book store, and 4 out of 5 books were new, I wasshocked it was so cheap. I've spent over $400 in the past for less credits, I wonder if my change in schools and major had anything to do with that (I was an English major).

[ZTABullwinkle]

I was lucky this semester, and only had to pay $350 for my books. I am a biology and psychology major, and those books are always expensive. We are lucky that we have another bookstore that sells book for a few dollars cheaper than the Barnes & Noble run school bookstore.

The state of VA required that schools publish their reading lists before the semester so students can purchase books somewhere else if chaper. Here is the recent article about it in our paper.

Online lists let students buy books, save bucks

By PHILIP WALZER, The Virginian-Pilot
© September 10, 2005

NORFOLK — Andre Wells got a head start on textbook-shopping this summer.

The Old Dominion University junior found the reading lists for his classes on the university’s Web site in mid-August. He shopped around and ended up buying all his books online for $230 .

That saved Wells $200.

The business student benefited from a law passed this year by the General Assembly requiring public colleges to post their course reading lists online.

Whether many other students have taken advantage of the new feature is hard to gauge. Eight of 12 interviewed this week at ODU and Norfolk State University weren’t aware that the reading lists are online.

“I don’t think a lot of people know about it,” said Wells, who is from Newport News. “If they used it, it would save students a lot of money.”

But Virginia21 , an advocacy group for college students, has gotten 11,000 hits on a page linking to the reading lists.

“That says that the word is spreading,” said Dave Solimini , a spokesman for Virginia21. “It would not surprise me that it takes a semester or two that the word gets around to a majority of students.”

The law , sponsored by Del. G. Glenn Oder , R-Newport News, does not provide a deadline for the colleges to post the lists. But a survey by Virginia21 found that all colleges had them up by early August, Solimini said.

“Having recently been through this ourselves, we know how expensive books can be,” said Solimini, a 2004 graduate of T he College of William and Mary. “Having that extra edge to find an affordable price is important.”

Colleges worried that it would siphon sales from bookstores, as students bought more texts online. But at ODU’s bookstore, sales of books and other merchandise rose 8 percent this summer, said Don Runyon, the assistant vice president for auxiliary services.

“Our students are shopping around,” he said. “We’ve got students buying books earlier. I think it’s helped us and helped them at the same time.”

The University of Virginia also hasn’t experienced declining sales, said Jon Kates , the executive director of the bookstore. Calls to NSU’s bookstore were not returned.

Students offered differing takes on buying books on the Internet.

Marquese Wimbush , a senior from Alexandria studying management information systems at Norfolk State, found a statistics book for less than $14 online.

But Rachel Smith, an ODU freshman from Norfolk, checked the Internet, and “it came out to be not a significant enough difference to order them online.”

The state law, of course, hasn’t dented the price of books.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office last month estimated that college students spent an average of about $900 on books and supplies in 2003-2004 .

At Old Dominion and Norfolk State, some used books surpass $100 . Some new ones cost significantly more.

An accounting book goes for $156.50 , and a biochemistry book costs just one dollar less, at Norfolk State. A basic economics text sells for $148.25 at Old Dominion.

“I don’t think I paid less than $80 a book,” said

Danielle Brown of Chesapeake, a student in Norfolk State’s master’s program in social work.

“I think it’s a pretty crazy amount of money,” Smith said. “You pay 70 dollars for your parking pass and about 400 for books, and you buy all your other stuff, and you’re poor.”

A companion bill approved by the legislature requires the state to survey students and issue a report in January on textbook pricing in Virginia and elsewhere. Students may fill out the survey at www.schev.edu until Sept. 18 .

Solimini calls the law “a great success.” More than 6,000 students signed petitions urging legislators to pass it, he said.

“This is one of those examples when people can see that getting involved in the legislative process can have an impact in their life,” he said.

[kddani]

Half.com and Amazon.com are your friends. Buy used from there (gonna almost always be cheaper than your campus bookstore), and resell on there (ALWAYS can get more money than selling them back on campus).

There is no reason for a friggin calculus book to be changed every 2 years. There's also no reason that your campus bookstore should be allowed to buy back a students book for $2 and then turn around and resell it for $45 (yep, happened to me. I just laughed at them and said no thanks, i'll sell it online).