Soaring price of books adds to financial burden

Wholesale prices of textbooks rose nearly 40 percent in the past five years.
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- As college students across the country settle into their dorms and class routines this month, many of them are feeling the lingering pinch of an unexpected bill: the high price of college textbooks.
Though the dramatic increase in college tuition in recent years is well known, students and parents are finding that the costs keep coming even after a student is on campus, as many textbooks can cost well over $100.
Some college and public-interest groups charge that the publishing industry is forcing textbook prices higher by introducing unnecessary new editions and packaging books with expensive study materials that not all students want or need. The National Association of College Bookstores says wholesale prices of college textbooks have risen nearly 40 percent in the past five years.
And students are finding that many of the same books are sold overseas at much lower prices.
Other alternatives
Some students are getting more aggressive about buying used books, when possible, through multicampus Web sites such as Books on Campus and DogEars. And some schools are also establishing and promoting used-book exchanges to help students. The really resourceful on campus have even gone as far as ordering their books from overseas Web sites, where prices can be significantly cheaper for new books -- though doing so means a longer shipping time and no returns.
Industry experts say that it is hard to measure the impact of the alternative sales channels and that some of it may be masked by price increases.
The $3.4 billion-a-year higher-education publishing industry says that it must keep its material current to win schools' support and that prices are competitive in each market. Industry officials defend new editions churned out by major higher-education publishers Thomson Learning, Pearson Education and McGraw-Hill.
They argue that texts must be continually modernized if publishers want to keep the attention of today's college students, who are used to the graphics and interactivity of the Internet.
Congressional inquiry
The debate has even landed in Congress, where hearings were held on the matter this summer, and legislators asked the Government Accountability Office to launch an investigation of college textbook prices.
"If a student signs up for a class, they're pretty much at the mercy of the publishers," said Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., who led the hearing. "It's not like they have any other place to go."
McKeon and others say the academic-publishing industry has insulated itself from traditional market forces to increase profit. The constant reissuing of editions, in particular, is viewed as a way to force professors and students into using and buying new books.
A study this year by the California Student Public Interest Research Group found that the average release time between textbook editions is 3.8 years, regardless of whether the information has changed since the previous version. Of the textbooks surveyed, new editions cost 58 percent more than the older version, rising to an average cost of $102.44.
Publishers say new editions are aimed at including newer teaching techniques and more modern information or interpretations, even in more stable disciplines such as history.
"When you had a history book, it was all about dead white men -- today you have to make sure women and minorities are well-represented," said J. Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education for the Association of American Publishers.