Can someone explain to me why college textbooks are ridiculously costly ?

[noblegas]

I was looking on amazon.com and looking at Leonard susskind's black hole war and David Griffith's Introduction to quantum mechanics and they were both hard cover and Leonard susskind's book contained more pages than Griffith's Introduction to Quantume mechanics costs 5 times as much as Susskind book, even though they are both hardcover and susskind's book contained more pages than Griffith's book. What is the explanation for the ridiculous uncompromising price of a college textbook? Is the price ridiculously expensive because publishers of college textbooks knows that they will have a limited audience when they published a college textbook much like the ridiculous price of academic journals ? textbooks should not be more than the cost of most ipods and the latest video games.

 

[russ_watters]

The disconnect between the person who chooses the book and the one who buys it eliminates price competition. In addition, there is planned obsolecence and anti-competitive tactics.

 

[glueball8]

wow, I was searching Griffith's intro to em and quantum mechanics too. Their way too expensive, not worth it. I'll get it from the library. :(

The quantum mechanics is $35 more in Canadian then U.S. :( WHY?

 

[Proton Soup]

there is also a trend toward the price including more than simply a book. publishers like pearson will also have online content and online testing. so, the students are now paying an extra fee in addition to tuition for someone to evaluate their performance.

 

[Pinu7]

There are many (cheaper and better)alternatives to Griffiths.

Anyway, textbook prices are too high, you have to find:

1. A GOOD bookstore(you often see 30-50% discount on good books, if you find a good store. Try to find one locally owned instead of chains like Borders if you can).

2. Alternatives. Mainstream books do not always mean the best or most insightful. By getting an alternative, you can save a lot of money. I do not think I have ever liked the "standard recommendations" (Griffiths, Goldstein, Jackson, Sakurai, Rudin, etc.) anyway, so it worked out for me and it might work out for you.

3. Lecture notes. Sometimes, lecture notes are better than any textbook. For example, Terrence Tao's Analysis lecture notes were better than any book on Analysis available(not anymore since h then wrote two books on Analysis).

 

[mgb_phys]

Simple, you are paying $X*10,000 a year for tuition you aren't going to care about a few $1000 in textbooks.

It used to be the one area where the UK was cheaper, the same textbooks (sometimes in paperback) cost 20-30GBP instead of $150-180 - simply because tuition was free.

 

[Proton Soup]

something else i thought of. in addition to the online assignments and grading, the books are also coming with "test banks" and software to automatically generate exams for the teachers. lots of features are being added to convince professors to choose the book. and these features cost money. it's no longer like you're paying some guy that writes a book and finds a publisher for it. your money goes to support a production company.

and now, this is what I'm seeing at the lower undergrad level as a returning student. for upper level classes, the books were always expensive, and often very thin (which makes you feel even more ripped off when you can't use it for 4 quarters like an old calculus book). for a grad level text, you have no economy of scale to bring the price down, so the price is probably actually somewhat fair.

 

[waht]

There is more area on a page, and the quality of paper is much higher than that of a cheap paperback or a hardcover. Also many textbooks are printed in color, with graphs and photographs. That adds to the tab.

 

[Pinu7]

Note: It gets better as you advance, since the upper level books lack the expensive "gloss,"

Simple, you are paying $X*10,000 a year for tuition you aren't going to care about a few $1000 in textbooks.

It used to be the one area where the UK was cheaper, the same textbooks (sometimes in paperback) cost 20-30GBP instead of $150-180 - simply because tuition was free.

That is cruel business!

 

[Cyrus]

Not having an education is way more expensive.

 

[theJorge551]

Not having an education is way more expensive.

Sooo true...

On a side note, for most books, whether they be in the science realm or anywhere else for that matter, the actual number of pages matters very little. I recently purchased a large 800 page paperback book, for roughly $15 (list price), yet a small book on Antimatter, roughly 150-200 pages, costed me about $25.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

You can get good deals on Amazon if you wait till about 3 weeks after the semester begins. They always jack up the price during the prime buying season.

And you can get even better deals if you have some Indian friends...

 

[Klockan3]

The books are cheaper in Europe, it is funny how on all American books we use there is a note on the back "Not for Sale in the U.S.A. or Canada". By the way it is the same thing with medicine.

 

[Matterwave]

The elasticity of demand for textbooks is relatively inelastic; therefore, with monopoly pricing, the prices will tend to be far above costs.

 

[Nick89]

I just saw Griffith's book costs $108 (discount from $137 even) on Amazon, which is indeed ridiculously high. I have the book myself (live in the Netherlands) and I'm pretty sure I paid only about 40 euros for it, which would be $57 now probably more like $45/50 back when I bought it (with different exchange rates). It does indeed note clearly that it's not for sale in the USA or Canada, hehe.

I don't know if I should recommend the book for you, as I've never read a similar book to compare it to, but I enjoyed reading it a lot, much more than any other textbook (on different subjects though).

 

[BishopUser]

A quick tip is to buy the current edition minus one. i.e. my thermodynamics class required the 9th (newest) edition of the book priced at $160, while the 8th edition was going for $20-$30 on sites like amazon and half.com. The difference between ed 8 and ed 9? Cover art, a few grammar and spelling mistakes, couple of HW problems reworded, and introduced some new errors (probably so edition 10 could be released a couple years later).

Doesn't work for every book (books that have many editions work best). Use the library to make your best judgement.

 

[Proton Soup]

foreign pricing is often different, and much lower for the foreign sold item. for example, prescription drugs cost much more in the US than what they're sold for in a foreign market. you simply gouge a market to the extent that it can withstand the gouging.

 

[mgb_phys]

A quick tip is to buy the current edition minus one.

But then you will miss out on all the new discoveries in Algebra, Classical mechanics and Intro Calculus in the last year!

A friend had to teach an intro class in a major N American Uni. They were required (by the dept) to put a quiz in every lecture which used a hand held electronic selector gadget that came with the testbook.
Apparently this was to promote interactivity in the lecture - only a cynic would think it was to force people to buy the textbook.

 

[mgb_phys]

foreign pricing is often different.

It was just a bit of a shock after having to pay 1GBP to $1 for computer books (and computers !) that US textbooks were 5x the price.

 

[glueball8]

Is it possible to buy books from another country is its cheaper?

 

[diazona]

Is it possible to buy books from another country is its cheaper?

Sure, I know a bunch of people who do that. Did it myself, once, in fact... but the quality of the books I got was noticeably lower than expected. There was no plastic wrapper or anything, the covers were slightly smudged and the corners were starting to peel apart a little. Maybe it was just a consequence of having them shipped from India, but they almost looked like used books (albeit in pretty good condition for used).

Anyway, the point is, yes it's possible through online merchants, but you can't count on the quality control of the major US retailers like Amazon (or of being able to see before you buy in a physical store ).

 

[Proton Soup]

But then you will miss out on all the new discoveries in Algebra, Classical mechanics and Intro Calculus in the last year!

A friend had to teach an intro class in a major N American Uni. They were required (by the dept) to put a quiz in every lecture which used a hand held electronic selector gadget that came with the testbook.
Apparently this was to promote interactivity in the lecture - only a cynic would think it was to force people to buy the textbook.

well, i'll tell you what i think. I've got this elementary statistics book that is about 600 pages of fluffy text for some ideas that could easily be covered in about 100 or so pages. in fact, it's got SO MUCH text that it obscures the math. the idea seems to be that you're teaching concepts and critical thinking skills. only thing is, many of those examples show a real lack of critical thinking by the author. his tidbit about class sizes in college makes me wonder if he has ever been, or surely he'd know why class sizes get smaller as you become more specialized.

but what's really insulting about all this (and it would be funny to see it come to a class action lawsuit one day) is that the services that you normally think you payed for in tuition and fees (grading/assessment by the prof and any required TAs), you pay for them a second time by enrolling in the online services at the publisher. we're all forced to pay extra for a labor-saving service that is being marketed to the professors. books aren't chosen because they're great books, but because they offer great services to the teachers. only, the school (or perhaps the professor) is double dipping here.

it just seems a little dishonest to me, and maybe encourages text selection for the wrong motivations.

 

[robertm]

I purchase all my books second hand based on which are the best for the given subject and my learning style (not the school's recommendations). The main physics text that I work out of is the 1974 edition of Fundamentals of Physics from before Walker became the third author. It is a marvellous text and I paid less than 10 bucks for it.

The online crap they often force upon you now-a-days can be purchased separately from the texts much more cheaply.

 

[mugaliens]

Capitalism? Competion? Who knows. I'm finishing my masters this spring, and have some things to say about this:

Figure out a way to push for the right of the students to choose their own textbooks, and I guarantee capitalistic/free market economies will result in a dramatic drop in textbook prices. Furthermore, the "publish or die" path to tenure might just find a more rational basis that's less costly to students. Perhaps performance? Various teaching awards? Publishing peer-reviewed journals instead of just textbooks?

Just some thoughts. Given my observations since I first entered college in 1981, I've had to purchase many worthless modern textbooks, but have referenced several outstanding texts from the 1950s, most notably, a math text designed for WWII vets, a single volume written by a collection of mathematicians to take the vets from basic additiona and subtraction through advanced differential calculus, diffy-Qs, and LaPlace and Fourier transforms. And that's just the first 2/3 of the text! The last third applies what has been learned with direct application problems in areas of finance, basic engineering (statics and dynamics), electrical engineering, ballastics, etc.

Anyway, I digress...

I'd plan ahead and shop around. Local bookstores? Amazon.com? Sometimes you can find paperback "international versions" of texts for signficantly less than even heavily discounted hardback versions. Same content, but may not have the CDs/DVD/s available in the hardcover versions. I'd always ask the teacher/school if hardcover versions are mandatory, or if international paperback versions are acceptible.

 

[Proton Soup]

OMG, i was wrong, the book is closer to 850 pages with appendices, so it's like the War and Peace of dumbed-down stats. and i just found an example using surge protectors that doesn't seem to understand how surge protectors work. this is killing me...

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Figure out a way to push for the right of the students to choose their own textbooks, and I guarantee capitalistic/free market economies will result in a dramatic drop in textbook prices.

It may depend on the particular text. Generally any book that has a definite demand but a severely limited market is much greater in cost than others of the same sort but with a larger market. For example there is an author that I enjoy who is not very famous but has a cult following. Some publishers have relatively recently produced some books with material not of much interest to anyone but fans of this particular author. So while there is a definite demand for the material the market is rather small. Since the publishers can only hope to sell a relatively small number of the books the prices are much greater than the author's regular mass publications. For instance there is one in particular which is very specifically for die hard fans that is a fifty three page paper back that sells for about $70.
Now add onto this the issue that the author of a textbook invests several years of their time becoming qualified to write such a book and will require a fair return on that investment (according to the below paper this accounts for nearly 12% of a textbooks cost) and I think you can easily explain a large chunk of the cost of textbooks (supplemental cd roms and such not withstanding).


Here is a more in depth paper on the issue focusing mainly of supplemental materials and ideas of how to fix the problem of over priced textbooks.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3541204/textbook-sales-figures

 

[rolerbe]

They lose about $10 per book, but expect to make up for it in volume.

 

[mgb_phys]

I don't think paying the authors is a big part of textbook costs.
Except for a few people like Atkins who has written every ugrad chemistry textbook for the last 30years very few authors make money from textbooks. It certainly isn't an excuse for something like Jenkins and White (optics) that was written in 1935 but gets a new updated edition very year.

I'm inclined to blame the departments.
I assumed they were getting some sort of kick-back from the publishers - but I think it's just the taking over of higher education by MBA management types.

Everything has to be measurable and conform to approved standards.
You can't just write your own lecture notes for a course, everything you teach has to be approved by the teaching committee, and the easiest way to make sure it is approved is just to use an approved textbook.
The lecture theatres at the last place I taught were bing rebuilt without blackboards, everything to be covered in the lecture was in the lecture notes (available online in advance so the students don't need to turn up) any deviation from the lecture notes can't be verified by the quality standards committees so is banned. Blackboards would be a temptation to deviate from the printed notes.

Basically in higher education the motto is pretty much "thinking - just say no"

 

[fluidistic]

To all people that thinks that amazon is expensive, consider yourself lucky. Here in Argentina it's extremely difficult to buy a book in English. One way is to use amazon. But guess what? The customers make us pay 50% of the book in order to take it back. Of course, they don't advise you this in amazon. So the book costs us 150% of the price you see in amazon.
Furthermore about 40% of people who work aren't paid legally. A typical legal salary is about 300 dollars/month. A typical 1 room+living apartment is 200 to 270 dollars/month (without counting water+gas+electicity). This gives you an idea about how hard is to buy a single book from amazon, for a middle class Argentinian.

 

[tusavision]

Same reasons health care is so expensive.(already outlined in the beggining of thread) The role of insurance company is played by financial aid in this instance.

When we see a "napster" for college textbooks: then maybe the price will fall. Then again:
-napster dilutes the value of musician's talent by the uploader.
-napster for textbooks would dilute the value of the education paid for steeply with student loan indentured servitude.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I'm inclined to blame the departments.
I assumed they were getting some sort of kick-back from the publishers - but I think it's just the taking over of higher education by MBA management types.

I would expect this to be an inefficient transfer. That is, for the department to get a kickback valued at $1000 it would need to sell tens of thousands of dollars of textbooks to students. It would seem that a higher tuition coupled with cheaper textbooks would allow a Pareto improvement (viewing only colleges and students, not publishers, as players).

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm inclined to blame the departments.
I assumed they were getting some sort of kick-back from the publishers

That's just not possible. When I was a graduate student, the bookstore sold 5 or 6 copies of Jackson at $45 each: the rest were hand-me-downs, library copies, or bootleg copies from China or India. With $270 flowing into the system, how much was left for bribery? $20? $30?

Even Physics 101 won't work - imagine 500 students at $100 a copy, and the department skims 10% off the top: that's a whopping $5000, on a budget of many millions.

 

[story645]

When we see a "napster" for college textbooks: then maybe the price will fall.

There are tons of textbooks floating around on the torrent hubs. Most of the guys in my courses used ebook versions of the texts, but many of my professors also don't require students to purchase the book/are fine with students buying older editions.

The only textbook that I ever really hated buying was the one a professor wrote and forced us to buy. (I admire colleges who have rules against that sort of thing.) He counted attendance and wouldn't mark a student present if they didn't have the book with them in class. The book was also terrible, utterly incomprehensible for freshman/sophomores (the audience required to buy it.)

 

[mgb_phys]

Even Physics 101 won't work - imagine 500 students at $100 a copy, and the department skims 10% off the top: that's a whopping $5000, on a budget of many millions.

I was assuming something more along the lines of the drug companies.
An invite to the launch of the publishers latest textbook (in say Las Vegas) in return for setting that publisher's textbooks for all your courses.
Cost to publisher $500, sales by publisher $50K

As I say though I think it's more stupidity/management consultancy

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I don't think paying the authors is a big part of textbook costs.

The average writer in general does not make enough money to live on. Anything over 10% of the cost of a book going to an author is a pretty significant sum (per book) as far as I know. On average a decent author may make 12-15% royalties but that is based on profits not the price of the book. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the information in the paper though or maybe the author of the paper misinterpreted how royalties work.