So you’re back in school. You skimmed the reading list from your class course description, but you aren’t about to stress over it until your teacher hands out that syllabus and gives you a “You need this textbook,” or a “I would advise getting the textbook, but it isn’t required.” And sure enough, at least four of your five classes hit you with the “Good luck trying to pass this class without this textbook.”
Whatever, they’re just books, right? After some mild googling, you come to realize that these books must have been hand painted by angels in heaven themselves. With a lot of tears and a lot of questions, you fork over hundreds or maybe even a thousand dollars for your books.
Why do these companies charge so much for textbooks, and why do we give in?
Because they can, and because you have to.
I don’t know how else to put it. It’s cheaper and easier for you to suck it up and buy this textbook and pass this class than it is for you to risk failing. And the key few publishing companies who monopolize the industry are fully aware.
This year, I thought I had beat the system when I found the seventh edition of my textbook for over $200 less than the eighth edition, the one I was supposed to have. This was until I realized the seventh edition was over five years old, and in a statistics-heavy major, that would not work. Foiled again. But what about the subjects that aren’t so fluid? Like, Calculus. Four-hundred-ish years ago, Isaac Newton and Co. invented/discovered/figured out calculus, and nobody has very much altered it since. However, that hasn’t stopped Cengage and James Stewart from making eight editions of his almost $300 calculus book.
We can say things like “At least the author is getting money for writing this,” but really, they are getting about 12 cents for every dollar your textbook costs, which is just not that huge of a royalty (but it does add up with growing prices and quantities). We can say, “They have to charge so much because used and rented books are cutting into their profits,” and many publishing companies do love to say that, but that’s just not true. Studies show these kind of books are really not hurting the publishing companies business, at least not substantially enough to justify the rising costs of textbooks.
We can be mad at our professors if we want, but maybe it isn’t all their fault. As The Atlantic explains it, it’s like health care. When your doctor prescribes you medicine, he or she doesn't know your financial information, doesn’t know what your insurance covers, and sometimes sometimes doesn’t even actually know how much the medicine even costs. Your doctor doesn’t have to take it; you do. In the same way, your professor doesn’t always take into account how much your textbook costs and sometimes doesn’t even know how much it costs because you’re the one who has to use it.
So in conclusion, here’s why textbooks are so expensive:
In 2014, Pearson made over $7 billion in revenue, McGraw-Hill brought in $2.2 billion, and Scholastic and Cengage scraped by with a measly $1.8 billion and $1.7 billion respectively. Oh, and for fun, here is some photos of James Stewart’s $32 million home (not including the $5.4 million he paid for the house that was already there):
It's beautiful!
It glows in the dark!
His in-home concert hall seats 150 people!
It was built by aliens!
Look at this doorknob!
