Pretty interesting and relieving that someone besides students realize that this is a problem and should be investigated.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060713/bs_bw/bs20060712265644

jesus h. christ, I try to post in the lounge for a change and I misspell government

[Edited on July 13, 2006 at 3:04 PM. Reason : dafsdf]

7/13/2006 3:03:33 PM

Quote :

"The more add-ons a book includes -- complicated subject matter, color photos, hard covers, online tests and grading, and teaching packets and so on -- the pricier it is. "

Since when is complicated subject matter an ADD-ON?

7/13/2006 3:09:04 PM

From the article:

Quote :

"The U.S. House of Representatives started taking action this summer, in the wake of a 2005 Government Accountability Office report that found that textbook prices almost tripled between 1986 and the end of 2004 -- rising by 186% -- while tuition and fees increased by 240%. So, over the next year, the House's Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance will study the rising costs and make recommendations to lawmakers and interested parties on ways to make books more affordable."

Tuition is up even more than the textbooks, how about taking a look into that while you're there.

7/13/2006 3:11:26 PM

^ haha as I was reading that I thought they were going to look into why on earth text books havent been keeping UP with tuition

7/13/2006 3:12:35 PM

i can understand a very limited-volume texbook being expensive. If only 500 copies of a given textbook are printed in a given year, then it's probably going to be expensive. but a damn calculus 2 book or a world history book should not be 150 dollars.

7/13/2006 3:13:48 PM

^Didn't you know that profs. have to bump up to the latest edition each year to keep up with the latest trends in Calc 2. Otherwise you could buy a used book on the cheap.

7/13/2006 3:15:44 PM

Quote :

"keep up with the latest trends in Calc 2"

haha

7/13/2006 3:24:24 PM

international edition ftw

7/13/2006 3:24:56 PM

Yea, Newton needs to quit changing his mind already.

7/13/2006 3:28:48 PM

seriously, I can imagine having to update a history book or something like that every so often, but what else is there that is being discovered in the majority of science and math classes that requires new editions every couple of semesters.

7/13/2006 3:41:11 PM

most updates are corrections to example, more examples, more detailed/better explanations

7/13/2006 4:10:32 PM

^ that is what professors are supposed to do.(more examples and explanations)

[Edited on July 13, 2006 at 4:45 PM. Reason : .]

7/13/2006 4:44:46 PM

Quote :

"The average mark-up bookstores place on new books is 33% and on used copies is 50%, so that's why most bookstores offer the same prices across the board,"

NOT TRUE. I've worked at college bookstores for 5 years and currently run the textbook dept of one. Margin on new books is typically 25% with used books being around 35%. The bookstores around NC State do even better. In 2001 the campus bookstore dropped to a 20% margin and packbackers and hst followed. addam's kinda been here and there since they are corporately owned and do things pretty messed up.

i'd be making a lot more money if this were true. 80%+ of my bookstore's profit we gave back to the university.

but yes, textbooks are expensive. it's the publishers' fault, for reasons that i could espouse on for a while, but maybe later

[Edited on July 13, 2006 at 5:37 PM. Reason : lots of GOOD information here: http://www.nacs.org/public/industry.asp]

7/13/2006 5:33:27 PM

I usually go to the library and check out old editions, they are usually verbatim.

7/13/2006 5:59:33 PM

^I've tried that, and once my prof even told us to just get the old one because it was cheaper and she'd be covering the same stuff. Some of my professors are really great and try not to assign anything expensive, or just assign no text at all and make power points. Then again I had one bitch who specifically made us buy the new text because it had like one pertinent paragraph in it. Generally I don't mind buying an expensive text if we're going to study the hell out of it and actually utilize it, but 90% of the classes I've taken we haven't even opened the text, or at least not more than once or twice. It's such a waste and it pisses me off.

7/15/2006 1:13:37 AM

internet will make this all obsolete in not too long

7/15/2006 1:19:27 AM

^^

7/15/2006 2:17:47 AM

I like Apps. policy when I was a freshman there. You get books on rental, pay nothing, use it for the semester, and return it at the end.
If you lost a book or didn't return it, then they would charge you.

When I came here I was like why doesn't state have it.

7/15/2006 2:33:23 AM

I'd be curios if they can analyze trends across multiple publishers/the textbook sellers. Are the increase in prices a normal trend, or are there (legitimate) factors which can explain the increase in prices?

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 7:57 AM. Reason : .]

7/15/2006 7:56:53 AM

Quote :

"When I came here I was like why doesn't state have it."

Probably because we have over twice the enrollment as App. That means twice as many books to stock, keep track of, pay for, so forth and soforth.

7/15/2006 8:25:39 AM

Quote :

"internet will make this all obsolete in not too long"

there are a few wikipedia-style community-written textbook efforts going on, but for a formal mass-produced education process, you really need the structure of a textbook. now, if you are skipping the whole formal education thing in the first place, sure you could get the equivalent of a college degree using what's available on the internet. but for most, a textbook is still a pretty easy and useful tool

that said, the real future of textbooks is ebooks. if you cut out the 32.3% that make up paper, printing etc, you get a much cheaper textbook. still, production costs are WAY higher than your typical best seller (smaller market, difficult subjects, fact checking, copyright work, etc), but ebooks should still end up being cheaper than even used textbooks. the problem right now is that as much as people like to bitch about textbook prices, there's no market for these cheaper ebooks. a big part of the problem is the ebook readers available are terrible. once somebody figures out how to make a great reader, we'll be all set. most of the major college bookstore chains and larger publishers have been playing with ebooks for a year or so. they're just not making a dent right now

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 1:40 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2006 1:38:54 PM

I had an e-book for a Spring semester class. The interface sucked. It was harder to read than a real book. It cost almost as much as a used textbook. The reader checks hardware SN and only allows it to be used on one computer, making it a bitch to share with classmates or resell it to future students. The e-book was a ripoff for me and my fellow students in that class.

7/15/2006 1:52:25 PM

^ that pretty much sums up the experience right now. nobody knows how to make this work for both the customer and the publisher/bookstore right now. people are playing with lots of different ideas though. how to distribute, what to allow customers to do with the ebooks, pricing models, etc. it's just like the music and movie industries in the last few years. consumers want to be able to experience the products they pay for in the ways they want to use them, but the folks who make them still want to make some money along the way without people ripping off their millions of dollars investments. it's a tricky market transformation to make, and until the iPod/iTunes of the book world comes out, we're stuck in this awkward situation for a while.

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 2:20 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2006 2:19:30 PM

Quote :

"^Didn't you know that profs. have to bump up to the latest edition each year to keep up with the latest trends in Calc 2. Otherwise you could buy a used book on the cheap."

that isn't entirely true. Boles in the MAE dept co-authored the Thermo text that is used. A new edition came out just before last fall. The book company (McGraw-Hill) is releasing a new edition this fall. Boles said he was opposed to a new edition coming out so soon, but the publisher wanted to release a new edition before their competitor comes out with a new one. They hope to claim a larger share of the market since their's will be available first.

7/15/2006 3:29:42 PM

shenanigans!

7/15/2006 3:39:18 PM

i can't imagine ever wanting an e-book. it seems so cumbersome. the only thing about that might be nice is the search feature. ideally i would like an e-book version with a real text.

7/15/2006 4:13:48 PM

Quote :

"I like Apps. policy when I was a freshman there. You get books on rental, pay nothing, use it for the semester, and return it at the end. If you lost a book or didn't return it, then they would charge you. When I came here I was like why doesn't state have it."

It is DEFINITELY added to tuition up there, I can't remember the exact amount but it's at least $300 just for textbook rental. At least you can get some of your money back here or use them for reference later. I can usually find all of mine for less than that anyways... It's dumb.

7/15/2006 11:22:26 PM