The mounting expense of college textbooks has forced a group of university students to take action — and get results.
The I’d Rather Be Studying gang emerged during the 2000-01 school year after John Pease, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, learned from his students that the high cost of the textbooks was forcing some students to take out loans or drop out of courses.
Like most faculty members, Pease said he was unaware of the expense, which averages about $1,000 every year per student at the state’s flagship university — $100 more than the national average, according to the Maryland Public Interest Research Group.
His students told him the most recent textbook editions cost more, but contain few changes or updates in content, while others are packaged with CD-ROMs or study guides that bump up their prices but are rarely used.
“They were telling me … how they were getting screwed,” Pease said..
Keeping pace
Textbook prices in Maryland have increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994, and they continue to rise, according to the Maryland PIRG.
“The cost of textbooks [is] making it a significant financial burden for our students,” said Nariman Farvardin, University of Maryland, College Park, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.
At College Park, textbook costs equal about 13 percent of in-state tuition, or about half an average community college tuition, according to the Maryland PIRG.
The university’s tuition costs an in-state, undergraduate student $8,005, the dorm room costs $5,402, an average meal plan is $3,707 and textbooks are $1,025, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.
But Mary Skafidas, spokeswoman for one of the country’s largest publishers, McGraw-Hill Co., said the company offers less- expensive, soft-cover and custom books from which professors may choose.
“We are content aggregators who produce and deliver content that facilitates teaching and learning,” Skafidas wrote in an e-mail.
“The textbook is just one delivery method.”
But the publishers profit from this exclusive market, said Nicole Allen, director of the Student Public Interest Research Groups’ campaign Make Textbooks Affordable. The Student PIRGs are independent, state-based student organizations that focus on public interest problems, according to their Web site, studentpirgs.org.
“Faculty [members] are the ones who decide what textbooks students buy, and so publishers can set the price and get away with things that other industries would never get away with,” she said.
Used books rising
The I’d Rather Be Studying gang employs the guerilla tactic of bombarding professors with e-mails and fliers, explaining that they should turn in book orders on time, so students can sell their books back.
Selling back books allows students to recoup half the cost they paid for a new book. As a result, more used books can be sold at lower prices for the next semester.
But if a book is not ordered on time when students sell theirs back, they only get 15 percent of the original price.
In the end, turning book orders in on time can save students 60 percent on textbooks, according to the gang.
In the past three years, the gang has helped students save more than $2.5 million, school officials said.
Pease co-founded the gang, whose members change as students graduate and others join.
He said younger students often pay more, because they have to take various lower-level classes that require thick textbooks.
In addition, students majoring in science or math tend to pay more than English majors because of frequent changes in technology and scientific advancements.
Pease said the gang will start to encourage professors to allow students to use older editions of textbooks.
He said he allows students in his Sociology 100 class use the eighth, ninth, 10th or 11th editions of the assigned textbook because “as far as I can tell, the differences are purely cosmetic.”
The new 11th edition costs $49.95 from the University Book Center; used hardcover copies bought off alibris.com start at $1.99.
By the numbers
- “Precalculus: Mathematics for Calculus,” fifth edition by James Stewart, Lothar Redlin and Saleem Watson with CD-ROM. New from University Book Center: $115.35. Used from Amazon.com: $79.99
- “Psychology: Themes and Variations,” seventh edition by Wayne Weiten. New from University Book Center: $151.65. Used from Amazon.com: $64.99
- “Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings,” fourth edition by John Perry and Michael Bratman. New from University Book Center: $75. Used from Amazon.com: $6.21
Source: University Book Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Amazon.com
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