College Textbook Cost

One of the main reasons why college textbooks are so expensive is because they are overpriced. The publishers set the prices. The bookstore has no control. The publishers of the textbooks are in the habit of bringing new editions quite frequently. Most students hesitate to buy old editions fearing that they will miss out on

The article “Why Students Are Still Spending So Much for Colleges books” by Laura McKenna explains that students across the United States are spendings so much money in textbooks. In recent years, college textbooks have become more expensive due to the use of technology. Nowadays, several classes at colleges require students to buy a textbook that includes a digital code that is exclusively sold at the campus bookstore or the publisher website. Professors support these high costs from colleges because of the ability to make the academic experience more efficient and customized. Also, they agree with the high costs because they are able to have more office hours and face to face meetings with students.

According to an article titled (“College textbook costs more outrageous than ever” from today.com by Herb Weisbaum), the College Board “estimates that the average student in this country now spends around $1,200 a year on books and supplies. A single book can cost as much as $200”.

The cost of college books has tripled in the last 10 years, costing an average of $200 dollars (NIA). College 's will publish their own books, require students to buy them, then update or revise them every year to make the book obsolete causing students to have to by new one 's every year and making the resale of them, nonexistent! College 's will work with publishers and recieve kick backs for using books they publish. Adminstation for college also feel the advantage of higher tuition rates. The president of Yale salary has tripled from $591,709 in 2000, to 1.63 million in 2009.(5) With the average cost of graduating at a 4 year college at $27,293 a year, it is easy to see who is truly profitting from an attending and/or graduated student. Colleges are captializing of students in a poor economy and once out of college, their is no guarentee employment will be waiting.

In 25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College, a report published by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, several methods of cost reduction are outlined, including increasing teaching loads and taking advantage of new technology.

Attention-getter: How much money have you spent just this year alone on college? Hold on now, did you include all the fees? Living expenses? Your meal plan? Obvioulsy the answer is going to be in the upwards of thousands of dollars. Depressing, I know! College should be a time where you are truly discovering who you are and what you want to do with your life. It shouldn’t be about how you’re slowly but surely giving your life away to student loans. Oh yes, student loans, the mortal enemy of any college student. The college tuition alone is already high enough to put you in debt with student loans for a majority of your life. There are many things that factor into the price of a college education, some reasonable, others however, are a different story. Today, I want to talk to you about the scam that is going on concerning the price of college textbooks. An interesting statistic by The Huffington Post tells us that the cost of college textbooks has increased 253% faster than the cost of college tuition over the decade. How come college textbooks are so expensive? And what can we do to stop this? Well let’s get into it shall we.

Although most colleges do not consider ways to lower the cost, many alternatives are achievable. Expenditures for faculty salaries are a direct cost of instruction (Middaugh). This is one main concern that is questioned on a regular basis. Most professors in college are undeserving of the amount of money they make. A way to help fix this problem is to have someone sit in classes and evaluate how each teacher does, and figure their salary from the grade earned. Make each professor earn their salary by their performance rather than a set number from the beginning. A second alternative would be to reduce the amount of

College tuition costs more than health care, housing, and transportation; it has even risen past the inflation rate. Supposedly college should make life a little bit easier because it educates a person enough to obtain a higher paying job, this gives them the ability to support themselves. However, if tuition has risen above the everyday things that we use to get around, every day necessities to have a stable life, and the inflation rate, then it is an obvious problem that should be addressed. If this

According to MyBudget360, college tuition has skyrocketed over four hundred percent since 1984. Now, the average tuition rate for private universities in America is over $31,000 and over $9,000 for public universities. Not only that, but thirty-seven million Americans have outstanding student debt and thirty-seven percent of college students look for a job requiring no higher than a high school diploma AFTER they graduate. Tuition has tripled, graduates have outstanding student debt, and in addition to that, graduates look for menial jobs where even a high school diploma is not necessary. College expenses definitely adversely affect students and graduates in the long run.

Today college tuition prices are rising. Paying for college can often be a stressful responsibility. A college education is very important for many students, but when stressing on how to pay for college gets in the way, it becomes more of a burden. Kim Clark effectively states the rising prices of college tuition in her article, “The Surprising Causes of Those College Tuition Hikes.” Clark states that the cost of attending a public university, even after subtracting out aid and inflation, rose more than fifteen percent in the last

The tuition pays for the teachers, buildings and the school administration. Since college is more in demand it requires more teachers and buildings therefore college prices have increased 7% a year for decades. Tuition does not pay for dorm rooms, cafeteria meal plans and the cost of books which are very pricey and sometime double the cost of going to college. Many students try to find smart ways to avoid meal plans to save money. “In both good and bad economic times, institutions of higher education have continued to disproportionately increase prices for students and families. When times are tough, institutions increase tuition; and when times are good, institutions increase tuition as well.” (McKeon, Howard. “The college cost crisis.” Sov.vt.edu ) A college education has long been viewed as a ticket to prosperity, the gateway to the “American dream”. Today, higher education is playing a more vital role than ever in shaping our nation's

Higher education costs have been increasing at a rapid pace, faster than inflation for the economy as a whole, for the past fifty years. It started in the 1960’s when the federal government passed the Higher Education Act to increase the amount of people able to afford and attend college. Regardless of the Unites States Government efforts to increase the affordability of college, federal aid programs have not risen to expectations due to the ever-increasing college prices. To lower the price of college, the government needs to cut back on student financial spending to go only to the lowest income families and create tax incentives for families to start saving up on their own.

If Colleges lowered tuition, and book prices, people may have more opportunity to attend. College costs are at becoming higher, and keep rising every year.

For most people going off to college will place them in large amounts of debt. That is if they are unfortunate in receiving some type of scholarship. College is expensive because students have to pay tuition, housing, and for their books. One way colleges could cut down cost for students is to make textbooks free. Textbooks should be free for college students because they are expensive, they are becoming useless, and producing them is bad for the environment.

College tuition is a subject that I am certain is on every college student's mind. The current cost of college has become so outrageously high and so students are graduating college with what you think is a feeling of excitement for their lives starting, when in reality they are entering a pool of stress due to high amounts of debt and no job guarantees. With that being said overly expensive College Tuition is merely taking away opportunities from potential students. According to Collegefactual.com, you will see that 20 years ago the average college tuition for a student at any University was around $6,285 for the room, board, and tuition. Today, according to Niche.com, the average tuition for almost any college is over $30,000 for those same things. Today, this isn't even offered for those same colleges, we don’t even know what is actually causing the raising tuition. At this point in time, we are paying for the name. Just like clothing, we pay more for the “high end” (a.k.a the college name) items. This is an issue that not only affects college students, but people who want a good education. College tuition should be lowered because the average student debt is too high, FAFSA results can be misleading and not high enough, and there is not enough access to college for deserving students.