The Cost of Textbooks
Why are textbooks so expensive?
The cost of textbooks has been rising at an alarming rate for decades; in the last 15 years the rate of increase has been 4 times that of inflation. But why?
The answer largely has to do with textbook publishers moving defensively to restrict the used book market. When used book programs are thriving, the publishers miss out on a lot of sales – they only get money from new book sales. So they do what they can to restrict the sale of used books by issuing new editions frequently, making the used books obsolete and unavailable.
Another trick they like to use is bundling textbooks with bloatware like supplementary CD-ROMs, workbooks and the like – many of which never get used. They will either simply include it “free” with the text (of course, the supplements are already calculated into the price) or they will refuse to sell the textbook by itself.
Watch this video by the University of Minnesota for more information about textbook pricing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISZ4Tq50e0I&feature=related