I pit college bookselling games...

The BBQ Pit
1

That college textbooks are overpriced is hardly news. As an author, editor and publisher with academics in the family, one the author of the foundational textbook in his field, I know all the dynamics and cost issues and motivations.

My first child in a few years is in her second year of community college (working to transfer to a major), and for every textbook that’s merely pricey and worth only half as much in return, there has been one each semester that… grrrrrr and fuck!

In both cases, the book is exceptionally expensive (nearly $200). In both cases, it is a class that is an absolutely generic basic undergrad - Accounting 101 and Psych 101. In both cases, the books have “codes” for online course materials that are required, meaning that a used or rental copy is essentially valueless.

Other classes have similar requirements, but the books+code are more reasonably priced, or the instructor has generic codes they can issue to work with used or rental books.

Not these two. You HAVE to have this book, and you HAVE to have the one-shot code to meet class requirements. But can you buy a discounted edition from Amazon or wherever? For these utterly basic classes, for which there are probably a hundred textbook choices each (at least)? Nope.

Both of these classes have* special editions*, with a separate ISBN, that is unique to this college, and sometimes to the individual professor. You absolutely have to buy this edition, new, with the code. For a class that could use any of a zillion generic texts just as well - and could certainly use the standard edition of that work.

Now, I can see that a major might have a special curriculum, or a superstar teacher, or something that makes, say, a Yale or Columbia or even UConn-specific edition an asset. But this is a pissy little no-name community college without a recognizable name on the whole staff - an overgrown high school. There is no conceivable reason that any class or instructor there could need a “special” edition of a dirt-generic text.

Except, of course, for all the obvious reasons of bookstore profit and probably instructor kickbacks and payola - under polite names, of course. Students who want or need these basic classes are basically being robbed at gunpoint, $100-150 worth, in the excess cost of these “special” “no alternative” “new” “code-equipped” texts.

And today the cherry got dropped on top of the whipped cream on the toppings on the ice cream of this financial anal rape:

The college bookstore - the only source of this edition, selling it to the only students who need it - will not buy the book back, because its code is used. It probably can’t be sold to anyone else because of the slight differences in organization or whatever from the standard edition. So on top of everything else, the book becomes wastepaper after the session.

Fuck all this manipulative shit that has nothing to do with choosing the best book for the course and instructor and everything to do with ripping another few hundred out of each student using practices that are probably illegal in the retail world.

Excuse me. I have an Accounting 1 text to go shit on and then throw through a stylish glass facade.

2

I agree that’s bullshit, especially for a community college (where many of the students have little money and may not be receiving grants). Have you (or your daughter) spoken with someone in administration about this? If not, talk to your state legislator and see if they can address this through legislation. The other day the president proposed making community college free for some, so there is a recognition of the cost of attendance to college.

3

Good luck finding a state legislator who doesn’t worry more about contributions from publishers than from you.

4

That is a whole new level of college book robbery.

I thought I had it bad when my daughter announced she was going into the vet field. I feel for ya man. Someone at your kid’s school got a sweet deal to force this bullshit on students at a community college. This isn’t some video game that needs to be linked to an owner, it’s a college text book for fuck’s sake.

I fully support this Pitting!

Break out the pitchforks and torches, take down the monster!!!

As to making community college free for some sounds good and a reasonable discussion should take place, I wonder if that would jack up the price for the others that may not qualify - but that’s another thread.

5

How many state legislators are receiving political contributions from college book publishers? Perhaps I’m naive, but it seems unlikely. And as I said, the fact that the president is addressing the issue of college cost should encourage some legislators to act.

6

Community colleges were originally free - minimal fees and textbooks, but no class costs. The California CC system was once a powerhouse educational system on that basis - maybe still is, haven’t looked at it for a long time. But the whole idea was that it was publicly-funded basic college and trade education for adults and students who couldn’t afford even a state university. Now that CT is talking about making their 3-4 CCs “free” there is the predictable backlash about giving worthless slackers a free ride. My daughter, who is a model of grit and persistence and has overcome some early poor choices, works at Target and yesterday had to withstand an unprovoked rant from some fucking mouthbreather who chose her to go off on a long rant about how “her taxes” (probably all $20 worth) were going to be wasted on “someone else’s kids,” and she didn’t have kids, so the state shouldn’t spend any money on kids at all, and yadda yadda bing bing bing.

My daughter did NOT choke the shit out of her. I’m not sure what that says for my parenting skills.

But yeah, the rubik’s-cube layers of ways to extract money from the textbook market never stops being… astounding.

7

Sometimes they use extra-easy special editions for their schools, so they can pass their students who are not capable of doing the actual work the class title implies.

8

I don’t think that’s the case. (Both of these books are quite college-level.) In any case, I don’t think the publisher would allow a first-line title to be issued in an E-Z-reader version… they’d just offer another title that was wink wink nudge nudge suited for challenging class conditions.

I am going to see if I can lay hands on the standard edition of both works and make a comparison. I do have friends in special places (CT state gummint and major regional journalism) and maybe I will make a fuss. My suspicion is that the difference is a slight rearrangement of material - at most.

9

It is pretty pathetic that they’re doing this to community college students. My law school books were twice (and sometimes three times) as expensive, but then the market for those materials is much smaller.

10

Of course, this means that what you’re paying for, and are required to have for the course, is not just the book itself, but also the supplemental online materials. Which is defensible if those online resources are actually used, and are a valuable enough contribution to the student’s education so as to be worth the price, and there aren’t significantly cheaper alternatives that are just as good.

11

IME, 99% of “supplemental online resources” are “shit they could have put in the book but don’t to ensure that used copies aren’t as useful.”

12

Of course it would. Colleges are for profit businesses they’re not going to lose money out of the kindness of their hearts.

13

Only the for-profit ones, which doesn’t include community colleges.

14

Wow. That’s pretty much grade A uncut bullshit there.

At my school, although I don’t deal much with the undergrad level, my understanding is that textbooks are nearly always optional, and those that are required are generally basic, well-regarded leaders in the field. At least in my area of study.

15

That really is bullshit. I spent most of my college time renting my texts. Best thing ever!

16

Yes, renting through Amazon or CBR or the others is a great, win-win option for everyone. If there’s no other option, I don’t even mind buying a new copy… as long as it has trade-in value and can be resold and not wasted on top of my costs.

This “special edition” bullshit has me really pissed, especially finding out now that the books have no return value. I am Doing Things.

17

As someone who teaches at a university (California State University system), i constantly have textbook reps sending me samples and trying to get me to buy their stuff. Most of the reps are very nice, but i’m also very careful about what i choose for my classes. My job is to teach the students, not look out for the bottom line of massive publishing houses.

I’ve been offered these “custom” edition textbooks on quite a few occasions, and they are always marketed as a great way to provide a book that is customized to the particular needs of teacher and student. But i have always resisted, for precisely the reasons raised here. The freshman-level classes i teach, and some of the upper division classes, are required for many students, even those who are not majoring in my subject. I have no interest is asking them to pay a lot of money for something that most of them are only going to use for one semester and then sell. And i’m not going to saddle them with a unique edition that will be difficult to sell on the used-book market.

As someone who teaches US history, i have literally dozens of excellent texts to choose from. I’m currently teaching with a text that is considered by many to be one of the best in the field for introductory courses, and has the added advantage of being offered in a cheaper, paperback edition. The cheaper edition has exactly the same text as the full edition, but fewer pictures and maps (that’s often the stuff that costs a lot to put into books). I don’t really need too many pictures and maps in the book, because i provide plenty of those in my class presentations, and on the class website. I also think the students can focus better on the content of the book if they’re not distracted on every page by pictures and maps and charts.

The book i use is currently in its fourth edition, and this is the one i order for the campus bookstore. But the text of the third edition is very similar, and i tell students that they are welcome to buy used copies of the third edition, as long as they realize that the page numbers might not always match up when we’re discussing the book in class.

The full, hardcover edition of the textbook i use is about $108. The cheaper version that i assign is about $55, and they can usually get a used copy of the third or fourth edition for about $25-40, depending on condition. I also place two copies of the book on reserve in the library, so that students who are willing to read the book in the library on a short (2-hour) loan each week do not have to buy it at all. Some of them also rent the book, either as a physical book, or as an electronic book for reading on tablet and computers.

I also assign a whole bunch of primary source documents to my classes, but i select and collect those myself, and make them available for free download as PDF documents on the class website.

In my upper division course, i don’t use a textbook at all, but make use of multiple sources, from book chapters to scholarly journal articles to primary source documents. I provide all of them on the class website, and the only cost to students is the printing cost if they want to print them out rather than read them online.

My university has made an effort, over the past couple of years, to encourage faculty to reduce the cost of class materials to students. They even hold special workshops for faculty to show ways that this can be done. I’ve never bothered with these workshops, because i know my classes are already among the cheapest that any of my students are likely to take during their whole degree.

18

Thank you for posting this, and BLESS YOU for educating yourself and your students about the products available. I was employed for several years as a textbook buyer at an *independent *college bookstore, and I cannot tell you how much time and energy goes into trying to make books affordable for students, only to have publishing reps convince faculty that they really ought to adopt a custom-bundled pile of crap that doesn’t actually get used, and cannot be re-sold for the reasons stated above (“custom”, codes, etc.).

I feel the rage and frustration of everyone who is going broke buying textbooks, and for several years was the unhappy recipient of same as a bookstore employee, but please understand that it’s not the bookstore who packages this useless shit with the textbook - it’s the publisher. They’re losing money left and right, and one of their tactics to recoup those losses is bundling (along with biannual new editions of almost every subject).

19

Bingo!

20

This is an interesting observation, though. If the textbook publishers ran an “honest” business, would they be able to be profitable? Do they need to pull all the shit as discussed in this Pit in order to make a profit? If so, there’s a problem with this market. The more common presumption seems to be that the publishers are greedy profiteers raking in enormously excessive profits from their business model.

There’s an economic lesson to be seen here. Capitalism, which is built on free markets and the “law of supply and demand” is actually known to fail in certain circumstances, which requires government intervention to remedy, and thus typically gets bogged down in politics (as Really Not All That Bright notes in Post #3 above). (The refusal to acknowledge this is a common theme in conservative free-market Republican thought, and a recurrent theme here in the BBQ Pit.)

The particular failure here is Principal–agent problem, in which the consumer is not able to make his own choices over which products to consume, but has that decision made for him by others. In this case, it is the colleges, their departments, and the professors choosing which books the students must buy. The problem discussed in this thread is exactly what can happen in that situation. Another common example is in the choice, made by doctors, of the medications that their patients must buy, leading to the excesses and other problems in the pharmaceutical industry.