Freshman year, not knowing any better, I bought all my textbooks brand new. I spent hundreds of dollars on the glossy tomes on chemistry, calculus and physics.
I've learned a lot since then. As a college student who is both poor and cheap, I pride myself on finding innovative ways to not spend money. One of the areas I try my best to skimp on is textbooks. Last semester, I got by in one class with library books. Otherwise, I buy the previous edition of the textbook online for roughly 1/10 of the cost of a new one.
As a rule, I try to spend less than $50 on textbooks. For six semesters this plan worked flawlessly, but this semester, my last at UTD, I was foiled.
I ended up spending $60 on a single book for an introductory rhetoric class (why I have to take a freshman-level English class is a topic for another column).
The most maddening thing about this is that I wasn't even buying a book at all. I was buying a flash drive with a PDF version of the book stored on it. To have a hard copy of the 160 page book, I would have to print it at my own expense.
And, legal qualms aside, I couldn't pirate the book or even buy it used, because I had to buy a new copy to be registered for the Web site, where most graded assignments are submitted.
The rules of rhetoric have not really changed in the millennia since Aristotle published his treatise on the subject. Content-wise, the class might as well have been assigned that text. It would have been cheaper, and probably more interesting.
What has changed during the past 25 years is the way textbooks are produced and marketed for college students.
Textbook costs have been rising at twice the rate of inflation since 1986, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. That's almost as high as the hike in tuition and fees over the same period.
One of the primary reason for this, the report goes on to state, is the "enhanced offerings" that so often accompany new editions of textbooks. These are the CD-ROM's, Web sites, study guides and other add-ons that are often bundled with the textbook itself.
The American Association of Publishers argues on their euphemistically-titled Web site textbookfacts.com that such materials are vital for student success. What could be closer to the truth is that they are vital to their bottom line.
Five companies control 80 percent of the college textbook market, according to the GAO report. This leaves little room for competition and little incentive to produce affordable textbooks.
Instead, there seems to be a race between manufacturers to add on as many bells and whistles and make their books as expensive as possible.
College students provide a captive market. Already resigned to swamping themselves with debt or whittling away their savings to pay for school, they take the exorbitant cost of textbooks as just another necessary expense of college.
As it stands, only the textbook companies really have the power to change how much textbooks cost, and they have little incentive to see prices fall. Students can do their best to find alternatives to new textbooks, but so long as professors require the latest edition or access to the Web site, that limits the ability to find affordable textbooks.
That leaves a lot of power in the hands of the faculty in deciding what books to assign.
The American Association of Publishers, the primary trade group representing the textbook industry, notes that 86 percent of instructors "require or recommend these kinds of publisher-produced supplemental learning materials to better ensure their students succeed in their courses and college careers."
A study group convened by the University of Texas System to investigate rising textbook prices concluded: "In the short-term, faculty members selecting learning materials, being mindful of the costs, are key to controlling and possibly reducing the expense students) face with regard to textbooks."
What the textbook market really needs, and what could ultimately alleviate skyrocketing textbook costs, is competition. Real competition. Not five companies with huge marketing machines lobbying professors to assign their $150 bundle, because students will fail if they don't.
If professors, who are the real crux of this market, collectively opt for lower-cost textbooks, the market paradigm would shift and prices for students would drop. But individual professors really need to think of their students, so many of whom are poor and cheap souls, like myself.
In a perfect world, manufacturers would program their textbooks to self-destruct after a semester. So far, they've done the next best thing.
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