Nicole Allen is head of the Student Public Interest Research Groups campaign Make Textbooks Affordable. About 1,500 professors from universities and colleges throughout the country, including the University of Maryland, have signed a petition in support of the campaign.
What is the worst story you’ve heard about how high textbook prices have affected students?
Well, it’s normal for students to put their books on credit cards and go deeper into debt. I’ve heard stories about students paying up to $1,500 a year, students who purchase a book with a pass code and CD on it, then they drop the class, so they’re stuck with a $170 book that really has no resale value. I’ve heard of students actually having to drop classes because they can’t afford the books for the class.
Do you blame textbook companies for trying to make as much money as they can?
There’s no doubt that publishers are to blame for high prices. Our research has documented over and over the tactics that publishers use to drive prices up [such as bundling books with study guides or CDs, or publishing new editions that don’t have much new content]. They’re given a disproportionate amount of market power to engage in practices that they wouldn’t be allowed to engage in in a normal market, because the textbook market isn’t like any [other] markets. The students have to buy the textbooks.
What can the average student do to pay less for books?
Students don’t have a lot of power as consumers to choose lower-cost products. The first thing students should do is try to buy used books, and the best place to look for used books is other students. So that means asking around to see if anyone you know has taken the class before, or looking on Facebook or Craiglist. Or, also asking your professor if an older edition or unbundled edition would be OK to use.
