Affordable Textbooks Reports
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Executive Summary
College textbooks are an essential but increasingly expensive
part of obtaining a higher education. Major publishers have done little
to provide adequate lower-cost versions of most textbooks and advertise
them to professors ordering books for their classes. In response,
alternative and online publishers are offering lower-cost and even free
versions of some textbooks. Although these alternatives have the
potential to compete with the traditional publishers, they have not yet
secured a significant part of the textbook market. As a result, the
responsibility for making textbooks more affordable still falls on the
major publishers.
Students spend about $900 each year on
textbooks, a high price tag that can pose a financial obstacle for
students already facing rising tuition and dwindling financial aid.
Textbook publishers are the primary reason textbook prices are so high;
they often add expensive “bells and whistles” such as CDROMs to their
textbooks and frequently issue new but substantively similar editions
that make older editions obsolete.
In response to growing
student concern about the high price of college textbooks, the major
publishers have developed lower-cost versions of a few of their
textbooks. In addition, alternative and online publishers have emerged
on the market, offering free or lower-cost versions of some textbooks
to students and professors.
In order to provide a snapshot of
the lowercost textbook market, we examined the lowercost options
offered by the major publishers in their online catalogues and
identified several alternative publishers offering textbooks for a
lower price or for free. We found:
Major publishers have not
created lower-cost versions of the majority of their textbooks and do
not always properly advertise the lower-cost options that do exist.
Four
major textbook publishers—Thomson Learning, Pearson Education,
Houghton- Mifflin, and McGraw Hill—offer some form of lower-cost
textbooks, including low-frills paper or online textbooks.
Unfortunately, these publishers do not offer lower-cost versions of
most of their titles. When the lower-cost options are available, the
publishers at times do not prominently advertise them or make it easy
for professors to find the information they need about the books online.
A growing number of alternative publishers and faculty are offering lowercost and free textbooks.
The
rising price of college textbooks has created a growing market for
lower-cost and free textbooks. Several alternative and online
publishers are now offering low-frills textbooks or online versions of
textbooks. These books offer the same educational value as traditional
textbooks; faculty members we surveyed who have used these alternative
textbooks in a classroom setting said they are satisfied with the
books’ educational content.
Unfortunately, at this time these
alternative publishers offer only a limited number of titles. In
addition, some faculty members have raised concerns about online
textbooks since not all students have convenient access to the Internet.
Although
these alternative publishers could provide much needed competition in
the textbook market, they currently only serve a small percentage of
the students who need more affordable textbooks. As such, we renew our
call to the publishing industry to reform its practices:
Textbooks should be priced and sold at a reasonable cost to students. • Publishers should provide a lower-cost printed alternative to every traditional textbook in their catalogues.
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Universities and policy-makers can help by offering incentives for
faculty members to create and promote Creative Commons licensed and
open source textbooks.
• Publishers should
provide faculty and the public with up front information about all
possible textbook options and prices. Faculty can help by adopting
campus and system wide purchasing guidelines to build a greater market
for lower-cost books. At the same time, policy-makers should require
publishers to disclose all textbook options to professors.
Publishers, universities, and faculty should encourage a vibrant used book market. • Publishers should keep each textbook edition on the market as long as possible without sacrificing educational content.
• Faculty should be made aware of how their textbook choices affect the used book market.
• Universities should promote a variety of forums to trade or rent used books.
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