
A Brief History of the College Textbook Pricing Racket - yitchelle
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-college-textbook-pricing-racket
======
dougmccune
One point that is often undiscussed: what defines a textbook has expanded
greatly. It used to be that a textbook was just a book. But now a textbook is
the book plus a huge collection of other resources, most of which the student
never sees. A modern textbook includes tests with answer keys, a teaching
guide that a grad student TA can use to teach an entire course, flash cards,
supporting videos, handouts for class, online exercises, etc etc.

The dirty secret of modern textbooks is that there has been a huge arms race
in developing material that makes it easier to teach a course with less work.
I don't really think that truly benefits students, since most of this material
isn't for the student, it's for the professor (or more cynically for the free
labor of grad students used to do a lot of the teaching). But you can't sell a
textbook these days without it. I wish there was a universe in which you could
sell a simple Psych 101 textbook for $50 and have that be that. But the market
won't adopt a simple book like that without the myriad of extras. And since
the market here is wonky, meaning the person making the decision (the
professor) doesn't bear any of the cost (and might in fact benefit if it's her
book), we end up where we are.

This isn't to say that the whole new edition thing isn't worth criticism. Or
that there aren't all sorts of things wrong with the industry. But the
percentage increase you see in the cost of a textbook for students doesn't
just equate to the same percentage increase in the profit margin of textbook
publishers. They're not just making the same product from 40 years ago and
jacking up the prices 1,000% as the article implies. The product is a whole
different beast.

(source: I sit on the board of my family's textbook publishing company)

~~~
Jill_the_Pill
Seriously? some professors actually use all that crap? Over the last five
years, I've been a grad student / teaching assistant at both a large state
school and an ivy, and I've never once seen anyone make use of supplied
handouts or tests. The professor I work for now has written a book which he
never assigns, updating his handouts each year to keep current with changes.
There might be more room for that $50 textbook than you think.

~~~
jccalhoun
This semester we have switched to an OER (it is only the second week so I
don't know how well it is working)but the last two years we have used a book
from Cengage. The powerpoint slides and test questions that they provided were
of terrible quality. I did base my powerpoint slides off of them but changed
them quite a bit - including basic things like fix typos. The course was
taught by several people and we came together to make a test bank and some of
the questions from Cengage may have made it into that.

More than that, however, Cengage (and I'm sure the other publishers as well)
have been making a hard sell for their online interactive stuff and their
ebooks. A year or so ago they came and made a pitch to us talking about how
much cheaper they are for students (of course the students can't sell the
ebooks back and can't buy used copies and their access to the book goes away
after a year...) and how awesome the interactive online stuff was.

Luckily, the course director is kind of a self-professed Luddite and didn't
really care for it but other people at the meeting bought the sales pitch
completely so if we had a different course director I could see being forced
to use this drmed junk.

~~~
busyant
This is a little depressing. I'm a lowly adjunct at one school and this is my
last semester teaching chem with just an old-fashioned textbook (which is
already overpriced).

The department head has decided to switch us over to Cengage (with all of its
interactive features) next semester.

My suspicion is that the students aren't going to use any of interactive
products.

Do the schools get some kind of kickback from the publishers?

~~~
jccalhoun
No. To the best of my knowledge there is no kickback (they did give us a
Panera box lunhox and a totebag...).

Like I said the sales pitch convinces them how awesome it is and how it saves
money. I also think the fact that a lot of the online stuff can automatically
be graded is appealing to some profs.

I also think that some people are not that tech savvy so they don't see the
downsides of drm that are so clear to most of us that read hacker news.

------
diamondlovesyou
As a student, I've been fortunate in that most of the time I can find pdfs of
the books I need, saving me a dime and the pain of the weight of a normal
textbook. The two books I had to buy this semester were books I still bought
online, and I still hate them: they're slow, don't work without the internet,
constantly log me out (b/c timeouts), and why the fuck can't I cntl-C?
Chemistry nomenclature is a bitch. Give me a pdf for use in my favorite pdf
reader damnit!

The other stuff I _fucking_ hate is the free resources given to professors
(yay, fiscal budgeting!), but shifts the revenue stream to the student. For
example, iClicker, which provides the server for free to the professor but
makes the students buy a physical clicker ($50); when this service could just
use the _fucking_ web-browser and make the professor/university I pay tuition
purchase this _REQUIRED_ part of the course pay for the software. Or the
online homework, which is also a purchased item (like $60-70 too). I don't pay
for the organic chem lab equipment (and couldn't; that stuff is _expensive_!).

To be clear, I have not a problem with using these materials. I also don't
mind paying for them. But I _ONLY_ want to pay for it through tuition!

Also, why don't publishers work directly with universities so that every
student is provided with a copy of textbook/homework? It seems to me that that
would be a sure fire way to prevent lost sales due to the used textbook
market/pirating. They could just get the university to purchase pdfs of the
textbook for each student every year: it would drive down the incentive to
pirate and would mean they didn't need to develop their own _shitty-af_
reader. A win-win.

Anyway, to those still reading: sorry 'bout the language. This status quo
drives me absolutely bonkers.

~~~
zizzles
How's reading PDF textbooks on an e-reader for you? Personally, I've found
them a nuisance because you are not able to skim through pages quickly as you
can with a traditional textbook. Let's not forget the small screen size.

~~~
diamondlovesyou
It ain't bad, but I have a Surface Pro 3 (the Surface's are awesome, btw).

Yeah, it's massive drawback. I prefer it anyway as it incentivises better
features (at least I want it to): I can envision a reader that shows the edges
of the pages so you can flip through many at a time (ie think of how the pages
don't line up when the book is opened flat). I use the Microsoft Reader so I
can use the pen so probably no such luck for me.

------
rdtsc
I remember coming to US to go to High School then to University and noticed
the books huge, heavy things. Full of pictures and shiny pages, yet content
sucked and was spread out unnecessarily. Everything could have been condensed
to a 1/3 or 1/4 size. Then when I got to University also happened to notice
they cost an arm and a leg.

So I was thinking, I'll just sell them back when I am done and get the money
back. Nope, it cost only a small fraction of original price I paid. Because a
new version was out already.

Ever since I consider publishers of those books scam artists and crooks. In
college I had a meager stipend, and only later got a job on campus for minimum
wage -- I had work extra hours at night to make sure to have enough for next
quarter when an unpredictable (but high) amount of money would be needed to
pay for books.

~~~
bunderbunder
Amen on the content being awful. I'm in school right now, and have noticed a
distinctly inverse relationship between the size of the textbook and the
clarity of its instruction.

 _Especially_ in math books.

~~~
ivan_ah
Imagine you're the author, and you have to explain derivatives in 100 pages,
because your boss asked you to make the book 1000+ pages long. Including
definitions, formulas, examples, and problems, you could get to 30 pages.
You'd think it's impossible to write 70pp of padding, yet somehow they make it
happen...

So students are double the victims: they pay through the nose, and they get
100pp of crappy explanations, where 30pp would do.

------
plopilop
Honestly, I don't understand what is the goal of the teachers by making their
students buy textbooks a hundred of $.

In my engineering school (France), teachers write their own textbooks and make
them available to us as PDFs. You can pay for paper version at the school's
printer (~150€ per year, and then you'll have all the textbooks for your year,
and trust me, many students find that very expensive, especially when you only
get 3-4 textbooks some years). In the university I went, it was the same,
except that the only teacher who had written a textbook gave it to us for free
(300 pages). The rest of them gave us their PDFs.

That's why, would a teacher ask us to buy a book some insane amount of money,
students would not understand, and at the end, not buy the book. Moreover,
what do the US teachers gain from this? I truly don't understand how they
support this racket.

~~~
ralfruns
Also, many textbooks come with teaching material, incl. slides and handouts,
short tests, etc. If you have to teach a course for the first time, it is
super easy to get up and running with little prep work.

~~~
plopilop
Interesting. But then, I would say it's part of the teacher's job to prepare
his slides and exams, he shouldn't charge the students because he didn't have
time to do his job. If he wants some ease in his teaching preparation, fine,
but he should be the one paying for it. I mean, if the textbook has
everything, the teacher could as well not even bother to come and teach the
class, since the students already paid for everything.

In our high schools, exercise books are mandatory, but they are bought by the
school and usually last more than 5 years (you don't keep them). Couldn't it
be the case in US colleges, if teachers really want to rely on some textbook?

Also, to answer the other comment, making students pay for your own textbook
is completely unethical, especially for academics who are supposed to hold to
a minimum of work ethics. So, I'm surprised it's so widespread.

I know that I don't live in the US and that mentalities are different in every
country, but here I see that teachers make students pay because they don't
want to prepare their classes and because they receive royalties for every
sold textbook.

~~~
killaken2000
Some professors in US colleges are focused on research and publishing. Their
pay and whether or not they get tenure is based somewhat on the amount of
research they have published and the amount of grants they have gotten.

So teaching isn't a high priority for some professors as teaching is time that
you could have spent doing research.

Some classes are taught - at least in part - by TAs or graduate students. TAs
also grade most of the homework. In my school at least, I think the professors
graded the tests.

Now that I think about it the TAs might benefit the most from these pre-made
slides and such.

------
ivan_ah
Yes, textbook pricing is totally out of whack. Also, the need to legitimize
the higher sticker prices forces publishers to make books that are bloated,
repetitive, and waaay too long. Who has time to read 1000+ pages? The textbook
racket and bad quality of explanations is precisely why I started a publishing
company: we make science textbooks that don't suck.

[1] No bullshit guide to math & physics => [http://www.lulu.com/shop/ivan-
savov/no-bullshit-guide-to-mat...](http://www.lulu.com/shop/ivan-savov/no-
bullshit-guide-to-math-and-physics/paperback/product-22839889.html) (recently
released v5.1)

[2] No bullshit guide to linear algebra =>
[http://gum.co/noBSLA](http://gum.co/noBSLA)

There are also really good free books out there, with my favourite "gems"
being really old books like this one on basic math
[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41568/41568-pdf.pdf#page=3](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41568/41568-pdf.pdf#page=3)
and this one on calculus
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf#page=3](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33283/33283-pdf.pdf#page=3)
The calculus book is tiny, yet it covers the same material as a mainstream
calculus book.

~~~
whorleater
I realize this is self promotion for your textbook company (who's goals I
laud! Acessible knowledge is a good thing), but the idea that a text book is
"too long" is...odd. I've never been expected to read a textbook cover to
cover before, and all the extra content a textbook has makes it a remarkable
resource for referencing even after the class has finished. While the basics
of knowledge can be disseminated in far fewer pages, the upsides of having
extra examples and asides in a textbook pretty easily outweighs the downsides
(unless you count pricing).

~~~
ivan_ah
I agree that examples and asides are useful. What I had in mind is certain
chapters in physics or math books that are fully boil down to one equation,
but somehow end up stretching the narrative out to fill dozens of pages.

Just the other day I was looking for the statement of Stokes theorem in a
mainstream calculus textbook, and fell upon two special formulations, one
'outline' of a derivation, before finally finding the theorem. Even though I
knew exactly what I was looking for it took me minutes. What would a student
remember from this chapter?

A much better structure would be to state the Stokes' theorem upfront and then
give a few examples, and maybe show the derivation, then end the chapter.
Short and sweet; something the reader will remember.

~~~
tamana
You can skim of its too easy. Another student can't conjure more detail if it
is too hard.

------
ekimekim
I find it shocking to realise, reading these comments, that the university is
_requiring_ you to buy these books in order to pass.

I didn't buy a single textbook for my entire Maths/Comp Sci degree (only about
5 years ago, at University of Sydney). The maths dept generally didn't use
them (they had optional notes books that were just dense maths, generally
written by the professor, and cost about $20), and the IT dept...I think had
them but I didn't need them and we were never assigned homework from them.

The one case where I had an assignment (read: something that was worth marks)
assigned from a book, I complained and the professor provided me with a copy
of the relevant question.

I can understand recommended texts. But I can't understand requiring you to
make an additional purchase just to complete assigned work...at that point
you're effectively just paying for marks.

~~~
tamana
Oh you don't have to buy the books. You just have to buy a license key so you
can submit your homework for credit!

~~~
yitchelle
The cost is not just the purchase of the key. To work effectively at this, you
would also have to get access to the a computer and the internet. Both of
which are not ubiquitous as, say, electricity and cost money. I understand
that this is a 1st world situation, but even in the 1st world, access to a
computer and the internet is always possible.

------
Spooky23
The ultimate bullshit textbook is the "Mercury Reader" and it's ilk. It's
frequently assigned to English Comp 1 & 2 classes and is basically a
collection of short stories or books, a mixture of licensed and public domain
works.

When my dad taught it last year, it was $90, and all of the assigned reading
could be obtained from project Gutenberg. He told the class to return the book
and get the material online, and got a stern talk from the department chair
(he's an adjunct)

------
davejlsherwood
The textbook price increases were once thought to be a genius way to increase
profit margins. However like all goods and services, even those with the most
inelastic demand curves have a point at which people will begin to substitute
them for another good. Textbook piracy is at an all time high and publishers
profits have fallen significantly. The long run solution is subscription -
access to all the content required by the students at an affordable monthly
price. I'm one of the co-founders of Bibliotech the Spotify for Textbooks
(www.bibliotech.education). We are working with Oxford University Press,
Taylor & Francis and Cambridge University Press to achieve exactly that. Our
challenge is convincing publishers to provide the necessary content under a
subscription model

~~~
macandcheese
This is an interesting angle - have you had any feedback from colleges
themselves? What's your expected price-per-semester for an average student
without the 14-day-free trial?

~~~
dgelks
With regards to the UK universities/colleges which we currently in the
feedback is generally super positive since we can provide books in a more
accessible format with a much lower upfront cost. Regarding price point
(converted from GBP to USD) we currently have in Chemistry: 1) A premium plan
with all the textbooks a student currently buys for ~$17/month ($102/sem) plus
all optional reading 2) All optional reading for ~$4/month ($24/sem)

------
zeveb
> The duo noted the picture-free material tended to be comprehended just as
> well as material with pictures, but students preferred the more vibrant
> option.

I wonder why students' preferences are even a consideration: if they learn
just as well with older, pictureless books … why not use those?

> But it's worth asking—if professors know these textbooks are absurdly
> expensive, why assign them? Well, the answer involves a couple of factors,
> basically: Many professors simply don't know the prices of the textbooks,
> and, far less frequently, sometimes the professors themselves wrote the
> book.

FWIW, when I was in school I recall one professor doing his best to ensure
that our bill for each of his classes was never more than $50. I think that
all of our professors exercised some care in that regard — but ours was a
small liberal arts college, with every class taught by a professor or
associate professor.

~~~
tamana
The best thing about these book scams is that it is clear signalling: a
professor who forces you to use them is either a bad prof, or trapped at a bad
school.

------
sitkack
Here are some hits

$181 Campbell Biology: Concepts & Connections [0]

$275 Fundamentals of Financial Management [1]

$201 Psychology, 11th Edition [2]

$248 Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm (14th Edition)
[3]

$254 Marketing Management (15th Edition) [4]

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Concepts-
Connections...](https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Concepts-
Connections-8th/dp/0321885325)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Financial-Management-
Fin...](https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Financial-Management-Finance-
Brigham/dp/1285867971)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-11th-David-G-
Myers/dp/1464...](https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-11th-David-G-
Myers/dp/1464140812)

[3] [https://www.amazon.com/Management-Information-Systems-
Managi...](https://www.amazon.com/Management-Information-Systems-Managing-
Digital/dp/0133898164)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-15th-Philip-
Kotl...](https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Management-15th-Philip-
Kotler/dp/0133856461)

~~~
sotojuan
I never purchased any textbooks in my 4 years of a Computer Science degree. I
always found them online or the professor would be smart and have his/her own
material online. The only books I had were for some of my humanities classes
because they were actual books (novels, nonfiction) that were good.

~~~
killaken2000
If it weren't for the online codes it would be a lot easier to get through
college without purchasing textbooks. The books are easy to find but the most
of the cost has been shifted to the online codes.

Most of the early math/phys/chem classes require codes to access the online
homework.

~~~
sotojuan
Are those more common in big universities? Mine had 15-25 average class size
and we never had to do anything online.

~~~
killaken2000
My "Chemistry for Scientists and Engineers" class had 600 people in it and my
"Intro to Programming" had another 600 people.

I've been told that with the amount of students it wouldn't be possible to
grade stuff like that by hand.

As far as the online grading goes it is mostly the early STEM classes that
have the online grading. The non-STEM classes were mostly "read this and do an
essay" and the tests were graded on scantrons. After you move past the courses
with no pre-reqs and weed-out classes there are less people left and the
professors don't really rely on the online grading as often.

~~~
lostlogin
>I've been told that with the amount of students it wouldn't be possible to
grade stuff like that by hand./< This is a pretty lame excuse. Far greater
numbers of students have a far larger volume of work to submit at schools and
yet that is all marked by humans, or at least it is where I am. Some could be
very easily scripted. The rest (hand writing comes to mind) cannot be assessed
by human or machine.

~~~
killaken2000
Well that is just what I was told.

Another possible reason is that it is much easier to let MyMathLab grade
everything and then spit out a grade at the end of the semester. Though I'm
the one paying $140 for a license code.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
I wish it was only the college textbook market that was the victim of the
racket.

I know of 12 year olds who have 10 kg of school books. No one cares.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Add me to that list. We had to carry them all due to a locker ban after kids
kept bringing guns to school. Backpack was as long as about half my height.
Enormous strain on shoulders plus 8 books slamming into by spine for years.
Weight broke backpack's straps repeatedly. Many of us have back pain and
inability to get comfortable easily for rest of our lives.

So, yeah, it's nice if textbook makers or those acquiring something in school
remember the physical impact of books getting as thick as possible. Cheap,
locked-down e-Readers might make a decent startup idea for improving poor's
conditions. Along the lines of OLPC.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Enormous strain on shoulders plus 8 books slamming into by spine for years.
> Weight broke backpack's straps repeatedly. Many of us have back pain and
> inability to get comfortable easily for rest of our lives.

Seriously, get a wheeled backpack. No need to make things worse for yourself.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I think I saw one or two of those. Ostracized, "checked," or beat down more
than most. I was still trying to fit in at the time. Wasn't a solution
although great in retrospect. ;)

------
c517402
I seem to remember that the IRS changed the tax law on book publishers in the
late '70s. Before the change, publishers made large printing runs of well
respected texts and kept the unsold and warehoused books on their ledgers as
raw materials. The IRS changed the law and required the unsold books to be
counted as assets at the wholesale price, and taxes paid on those assets. This
started the current new-edition-every-year model of publishing textbooks that
has spiraled into the current situation.

~~~
linkregister
Can you share a bit more information about this? I was unaware that assets
sitting in a warehouse were taxed at all. Indeed, assets are typically
depreciated in order to claim tax deductions.

~~~
c517402
I wish I could be definitive. This the explanation I was given by one of my
professors. As I understand it most large businesses use accrual accounting,
instead of cash accounting that a small business might use. In accrual
accounting money is recorded in the ledger (I would say put on the books, but
that could be confusing given the topic.) when a sale is made, even though the
cash may not have yet been received. So, you have a profit on paper even
though you don't have the cash in hand. The IRS ruled that all the books the
publisher printed had to go in the ledger at face value when printed instead
of waiting for a sale. That means that on paper, via accrual accounting, there
is a profit that is taxed whether the publisher has the cash in hand or not.
Publishers could record sales and make there quarterly tax payments knowing
that they would get the cash in hand next quarter, but recording the printing
of the books as sales and paying taxes that quarter when they might not
actually sell the books for years was to much of a burden. Publishers started
producing just the number books they thought they would need for the year.
And, next year, if you are setting up a whole new printing run why not make
corrections and updates, that is, print a new edition.

------
Mendenhall
Pay a company to make the "book", dont print any copies, put it online for any
school to use and charge like 50 cents a download. School requires to see your
reciept so they know its legit, prices drop. Thing is they arent really
serious about lowering the cost of education.

~~~
yitchelle
Why shoot the duck that lays the golden egg?

But seriously, I would have thought the second hand market for used text books
would huge as the course contents rarely change from year to year. It looks
like this is ripe for a disruption.

~~~
killaken2000
Part of the problem is with the codes that are required for homework.

A class that I'm taking right now has a code for $110 and a code and textbook
for $135. So the textbook isn't really worth very much secondhand. The code is
the only required part of the class and is essential for the homework.

After the basic GenEds and weed-out classes are over there doesn't seem to be
that much use of online grading. Possibly due to the amount of students that
are left over at that point. Then you have more leeway on buying a used or
earlier edition.

In my Chemistry class there were 600 students and we had to purchase a code
for the online homework. I've been told that there is no other way to grade
that much homework.

Non-STEM (like English Literature) classes seem to have less of a problem with
purchasing codes for homework. The English Literature classes I've had in the
past just require you to read a certain book and write a paper on it. But
there wasn't any problem getting an older book or a used book.

Also if you need to do problems out of the book you need to have the right
book to do the right problems. The professor will tell you what chapter and
what questions but not what the text of the questions. Though you could copy
the questions from someone else's book.

~~~
Mendenhall
Help me understand if you would. The code is the same code for everyone ? so
if it was open source you could just download it ?

~~~
killaken2000
I don't know if I explained it very well but I'll try to improve a bit.

The homework in large classes that have hundreds of students are usually
graded online on the book publishers website.

For example Pearson publishes a Calculus textbook. In order to do the required
homework in class you need to buy a license to the online software which is
about $110. The license can only be used once for one book and expires after a
set amount of time.

So the textbook is not really worth very much. Because it's the license code
that is the requirement.

I see you were thinking about code as in software. I was talking about a
license code. A code similar to the Windows activation code/serial/key etc.

~~~
Mendenhall
Thank you, I think it was just me not understanding because I havent been in
school in a long time. Thanks for explaining. The more I find out how schools
work right now the more it seems like a scam lol Best wishes with your
studies!

~~~
tomcam
Are you Eric, formerly of QSC?

~~~
Mendenhall
No I am not.

------
DarkLinkXXXX
I think it's a little disingenuous to call openstax "the Napster model", but
it's still a good article nevertheless.

------
Fej
Everyone pirates textbooks. The fuckers at the textbook companies can go dig
their own graves. Artificial scarcity is their only hope, and they can't
resell calculus and Newton's laws forever... it's not like they've changed in
the past few years.

I can imagine a parody commercial... _I saved hundreds of dollars this
semester by switching to BitTorrent!_

~~~
emerod
I don't even understand why some college students still lug around tons of
worthless paper textbooks.

------
vinchuco
Gen.lib.rus.ec

It has really an impressive selection on textbooks of any kind.

