Other than standing up for textbook publishers, I have no idea what point you are trying to make. One of the major drivers of price escalation is that consolidation of textbook publishers. Today, we are down to something like two or three major publishers. Can you spell
monopoly?
I have read numerous comments tagging the textbook publishers as the enemy - out to exploit students and "rip them off". I would like to first point out that students and institutions apparently choose to ignore the fact that college tuitions are escalating at a higher rate that textbooks and nobody seems to portray the colleges as the enemy.
This makes no sense. The development and production costs of textbooks has nothing to do with tuition. A textbook is an enabling product for education. There are many others. For many students, pizza is an essential product for them to pull all-nighters. If tuition increases by 50%, is
the price of pizza also supposed to increase by 50%?
Secondly, the reason that textbooks are so expensive in the first place is because of the used book market. Publishers are forced to increase cost to compensate for lower sell-through due to the availability of used texts. Costs to authors, production, research, distribution, etc. exist and when new editions account for such a small percentage of actual books sold, cost for the book must increase to cover production cost.
Nonsense. Next you will claim that books are more expensive because bookstores are now built using fired brick. Used textbooks have been an accepted part of education for decades--if not longer. If anything, there is now a mandate to use new textbooks that did not exist when I was in college. College accrediting agencies in my region frown upon any textbook edition that is older than three (3) years.
I don't understand how students are willing to pay thousands of dollars in tuition to go to a good school, but asking them to pay $150 for a quality textbook that helps prepare them for a career is out of the question. Instructors depend on these materials to stay informed, current and relevant - yet they are quick to throw the publishers of those books under the bus when students complain.
Again, nonsense. College professors do not rely on textbooks--quality textbooks or crappy textbooks--to stay informed. They rely on professional publications--refereed and an non-refereed. Owing to the rapid pace of new publications, they frequent websites such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory's
lanl.arXiv.org website.
You carry-on as though professors are shifting blame from themselves to the textbook publishers. The facts are that professors do not set the prices of textbooks. Even if they author the textbook, they receive what the publisher offers. What you don't seem to understand is that most college professors want their students to learn. When they their students having to pay $200 for a textbook that may have cost them $30 when they were students, they sympathize with their students.
Students today have more options than ever before when it comes to purchasing options - ebooks, individual echapters, textbook rental, and innovative new formats focused on student demands.
You greatly exaggerate. Textbook rentals have been around for decades. Ebooks, both online and offline, are new. I will give you that. As I stated in a previous post, ebooks are temporary rentals, not permanent ownership. Interestingly, you did not mention custom published materials by the professor. These are often much less expensive for the student than books from the big publishing houses.
It's easy to place the blame on the publishers, but do your homework before making such statements.
Physician, heal thyself.