Dive Summary:
- Textbook prices have soared 82% over the past decade, and students and some professors have had enough.
- According to a Book Industry Study Group survey, 34% of students reported pirating course materials during the spring semester, with 31% also reporting that they scanned or photocopied chapters from someone else's book; more faculty are also publishing or adopting free or low-cost alternatives online.
- Scholarly Publishing Resources Coalition program director Nicole Allen says publishers have long gotten away with steady price increases because students have to buy whatever they're assigned, but cheaper alternatives, like increasing used and digital options, are steadily turning the tables.
From the article:
... "One of the reasons why you're starting to see the average spending decrease by students (is that) the digital market is starting to take more of a hold," says James McCusker, a vice president for Cengage, a Connecticut-based college textbook publisher.
Congress in 2008 passed a law requiring publishers to provide more information to faculty about the costs of materials they require students to buy and requiring colleges to disclose prices to students in a timely manner so they can plan. ...