In Mark Perry’s article, The college textbook bubble and how the “open educational resources” movement is going up against the textbook cartel, he discusses the increasing issues of cost for college students’ textbooks and the incoming cheaper alternatives.  The article states a startling and unfortunate statistic for young college students, declaring that textbook costs have increased 812% since 1978.  Although one must take the rate of inflation into account, the textbooks prove to have still increased severely, even after calculating inflation.

While this absurd increase in textbook prices makes the increase in medical services subsequently insignificant, there have been rapidly developing new solutions to this textbook bubble, bound to pop in the nearing future.  Some of these solutions include digital textbooks and open educational resources, both of which would lessen textbook costs for students.  With 23% of average adults reporting reading an ebook in the past year, ebooks in general seem to be gaining popularity in the United States as an acceptable and well-liked option for reading (source). While adults and children alike seem to be gaining familiarity with digital books, the acceptance and appreciation for these books increase as well, leading to more and more Americans choosing digital books each year.

The cost of textbooks for college students has increased throughout the past ten years 812% (Source). With that kind of exponential growth in the prices of textbooks, many students are looking to find better options for their budgets. The average students spends $900 on textbooks each year. To put this ridiculous statistic in perspective, that is about 20% of tuition at a public, 4-year university. Another large cost associated with textbook costs derives from the need for updated books and new editions. In the article, New Report Shows College Textbook Costs Increasing Sharply Ahead of Inflation, a survey found price increases as much as 21% between editions, more than 3 times the rate of inflation, where the average new edition of a textbook costs 45% more than a used copy of a previous edition.

While these two issues could seem to fully explain the increase, one other large contribution should be noted. Publishing companies require, oftentimes, that students pay for additional items that become bundled with the textbook itself. With CDs, lab manuals, and workbooks all bundled with the textbook, students might believe that they are saving money buying all the material together. However, the disadvantage to this illusion that bundling the materials will make it cheaper for students is evidenced in that over 65% of the faculty surveyed for this report stated that they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ make use of the extra “bundled” material in their classes.  When the instructors are not using or requiring such materials, it is a waste of money for the student, especially when there remains no alternative in which the students may buy the textbook by itself.  This issue further proves itself a problem when the report found that 50% of all the bundled books surveyed did not have an unbundled equivalent on the shelves and that these bundled books were 10% more expensive than the unbundled versions in times that the unbundled version was, in fact, available.

At the ODEE at Ohio State, our book launch initiative includes the goal of reducing these costs for students. Digital books have been recorded to reduce spending an average of 33%, from an average of $900 for students who buy a combination of new and used printed textbooks versus $602 for those who choose to buy digital textbooks. Whereas digital books reduce spending by 33%, open textbook options reduce spending by 80% for students.  While these options may still have their respective issues to work out, the evidence in these studies overwhelmingly supports the conversion of printed textbooks to digital books, and promotes a cheaper alternative for students.

Calling all iBook Author Participants!

Join us for Panera and the passing out of your MacBook Airs!  Wednesday July 9th from 11:30 am-1:30 pm in Baker Hall Room 285, the Book Launch team invites you to a Book Launch kickoff meeting to get to know each other, introduce your topics, and, of course, eat food!

We can’t wait to see you all there!