How textbook companies are tricking your college
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | 4 Comments
Who picks textbooks at your college? Is it your actual professor or some other faculty member who has little reason to pick a more inexpensive version?
Well, textbook companies are really hoping to get to that faculty member and get him or her to pick the bundled packages that are now being offered. The bundled packages include a NEW book as well as materials for the class. If a professor thinks that bundling these together will save the student money, the professor or other faculty member is dead wrong.
This is the new way that textbook companies are trying to combat the rising use of use textbooks and now that used textbooks can be bought and sold over the internet and through sites like half.com instead of just the local bookstore, their business is really hurting.
Textbook companies have also been trying to bundle the boos into a looseleaf style package where the book can’t be sold back to the bookstore and you have to find a student who is willing to buy a book that’s like that. I think I bought two books like that the whole time I was in college.
I know that some professors really don’t care if they are saving their students a few dollars or not. I have known professors to require books they don’t ever use or they end up teaching straight from PowerPoint presentations.
I’ve also seen professors go for the most expensive and newest book (so there aren’t any used copies yet) and say that the “old” book isn’t good enough or isn’t current enough when in fact, the “old” book was published only a year or two prior and the information is almost completely the same.
I’ve even had a professor lie about being able to use the same book for the next class level up. That’s just a shady way to get a student to buy the book.
Sometimes I wonder if the professors are getting some kind of cut on the sale of new books.
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Tags: student money, looseleaf, textbook companies
Tony | Thu, Aug 27 2009
I wrote about the topic of expensive textbooks myself, but I wrote as someone who taught a college-level course. Here are the links to my articles from a pseudo-insider’s perspective:
http://blog.thisyoungeconomist.com/2009/08/expensive-textbooks-part-i.html
http://blog.thisyoungeconomist.com/2009/08/expensive-textbooks-part-ii.html
In short, textbooks are expensive in large part due to marketing expenditures that are designed to get professors to read (i.e., review) the book. Professors aren’t paid to adopt a particular textbook, but they are courted by textbook companies. After all, it is the professor who makes the decision to adopt a textbook.
Chris McClelland | Fri, Aug 28 2009
My and my wife Jen always joke about starting a publishing company aimed at college kids because of all the money involved. What makes us mad is the resell market. A new book might cost $100, then used for $90, but when you bring in the book to try to sell back to the store they offer maybe $25-$30.
So Jen started selling her books back on Half.com and in some cases sells the books back for a small profit. In anything case she almost comes out getting her books for free, because of the sell back money.
Lis from Ace Cash Express | Tue, Sep 08 2009
Yeah, very true. My younger brother who is now taking up accountancy used to complain about this trick from their university professors. Most of them require to buy the new books, even if the some of the students happen to possess a not-that-pretty-old one.
Jonathan from Friends&Money | Sun, Sep 13 2009
It always strikes me as crazy that the education system seeks to exploit it’s students by promoting expensive books or worse still encouraging students to buy books by professors that are at their establishment, thereby lining their own pockets. The education system is about teaching and learning not about making money at the expense of their students. My opinion is that they should offer choice in the process rather than insisting on a more expensive book over a cheaper one.