 Media Credit: Ryan Joyce Textbook publishers, who frequently bundle textbooks with CDs to increase their price, face criticism from students, who struggle to pay.
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Economics: $124. Biology: $159. Calculus: $87. The sight of students fainting when they get their textbook receipt: priceless.
For students at Boston College and universities around the country, high textbook prices are an unwelcome burden on top of tuition, room and board, and incidentals. Unfortunately, the problem is only getting worse. According to Make Textbooks Affordable (MTA), a campaign launched by the Student Public Interest Research Groups, college students spend about $900 a year on textbooks and prices have risen by more than four times the inflation rate since 1994.
MTA offered several possible explanations for this disproportionate increase. Publishing companies are coming out with new editions of textbooks more frequently. These editions are more expensive and render older editions obsolete, but contain few significant content changes. A MTA study found that 76 percent of professors felt revisions were justified only "half the time or less."
Companies are also packaging CD-ROMs and workbooks with their textbooks to increase the price, but often times professors and students do not utilize these supplements. Bundled textbooks are also harder to sell back to bookstores because many do not accept books with missing CDs or used online passwords.
Some BC students blamed the Bookstore. "They're definitely overpriced because you can get them off Amazon for much cheaper," said Emily Krol, A&S '08. Krol spent $200 on books this semester, which she says is low because she is only taking four courses.
Krol said the Bookstore is often more convenient for students because they can get their books for the first day of class. "The Bookstore capitalizes on them," said Krol. She believes it will take student activism to bring about significant change.
"I feel like we should get a discount. I feel like the college is like a business and their main goal is to make a profit off us," said Disha Robinson, A&S '11.
Robinson spent around $300-400 on textbooks this semester, but she said she would have spent more if a few of her books had not carried over from last semester. She said that the University should factor discounts into its budget.
