As students prepare to return their textbooks after finals, they’ll have to judge more than the books’ covers to calculate how much – or how little – money they’ll receive.
University professors are increasingly turning to continually updated textbook editions and pricey supplemental materials such as CDs, according to University Bookstore managers, who’ve noticed the new trends in faculty preferences are burning slightly bigger holes in students’ wallets.
Managers say these deals can initially cost students more and lead to diminishing returns when the books are sold back at the semester’s end.
The burden of rising textbook costs has been a concern for the University Senate, which has put the long-debated issue on the back burner for the meantime. Mary Giles, executive secretary and director for the university’s most powerful policy-making body, said a proposal that would constantly remind professors of impeding book order deadlines will be deferred to the Student Government Association due to concerns about how to implement the technology.
In the meantime, custom-ordered books, which allow faculty to cherry-pick the chapters, mathematical graphs and even photographs they want included in their course’s textbook, have been rising in popularity. Publishers say this provides students a better value because the book will be used in its entirety.
“Real cost is in content, so if faculty members only use half or a third of the chapters … it brings down the price,” said Bruce Hildebrand, the Association of American Publishers’ executive director for higher education. “Instead of buying different books, they can combine everything in one place.”
If faculty alert the bookstores that these custom books will be reused, students are paid for them just like any traditional textbook – receiving half of the new book’s value. However, if faculty choose to change anything in the book, it loses all its value.
For instance, BSCI 103: The World of Biology has used a custom-ordered textbook this semester, but the professor does not plan to use the book again, according to Ted Ankeney, the Maryland Book Exchange’s General Manager.
“I can’t buy it back – not at all,” he said.
To engage students in a large class, faculty have increasingly used “bundled” textbooks, which package multimedia options such as a CD-ROM or study guides in addition to the textbook. The supplemental material offers videos and quizzes to accompany the study material.
Faculty ordered 170 of these “bundled” textbooks this semester, said Mike Gore, the University Book Center’s general manager. However, the bookstores usually do not buy these at their full value because the additional material can only be used once.
“A student has a private code [attached to the CD-ROM] and can only use it that one time, so booksellers for the most part don’t buy that book back, and book publishers can sell a new book all the time,” said John Pease, a sociology associate professor. “Publishers have been trying to reduce the used-book market.”
Although the Government Accountability Office blamed publisher investments in supplemental material such as CD-ROMs for the rising cost of books, many say the real cost to students is the constant flow of new textbook editions.
This semester, 38 courses encouraged students to purchase brand-new textbook editions even though at times the older editions are very similar, an increase from previous semesters, Gore said.
The new editions, which premiere, on average, every four years, cost much more than older editions, but their purchase is entirely market-driven, Hildebrand said.
“It’s like [older editions] evaporate. It’s a perception, but that’s not true. … There are warehouses that have those books in them,” Hildebrand said. “Faculty go from publisher to publisher every year because they are looking for the most recent textbook.”
Provost Bill Destler agreed that faculty have not made enough of an attempt to consider the cost to students when they order a new edition.
“[Faculty] need to make sure the new edition is worth it. We need to basically use a little common sense,” Destler said. “I don’t think they’re thinking much about it for the most part. … It’s tempting just to list the latest edition.”
Although faculty decisions may be at fault for rising textbook costs, administrators insist that faculty should freely chose their book orders because some courses require textbook editions updated more frequently than others.
“That’s an individual decision, and you would want it that way because it would depend on the field,” said Ellin Scholnick, associate provost of faculty affairs. “You don’t want your students to walk out with an outdated view of the field.”
Contact reporter Ben Block at blockdbk@gmail.com.
