Textbook Insanity

This weekend I dropped my daughter off to begin her sophomore year at James Madison University. I am a member of USAA and on their site, they recommend clearly establishing what the parent will pay for and what the college student will pay for. We have done this and I am paying for tuition, room/board and books.

I threw in books just being a generous parent. I sincerely wish I had not done so. The ridiculousness that is college text books is totally out of hand. We were able to buy used books for half of her requirement for this semester and it still cost over $550 for five classes.

I have no qualms about paying $550 if she were going to use the books, glean massive amounts of applicable knowledge, and see the value of this investment, but that does not even approach reality. Half the time the professors never even use the books.

From the Washington Post:
“Estimates of how much students spend on textbooks range from $700 to $1,100 annually, and the market for new books is estimated at $3.6 billion this year. Between 1986 and 2004, the price of textbooks nearly tripled, rising an average of 6 percent a year while inflation rose 3 percent, according to a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. In California, the state auditor reported last week that prices have skyrocketed 30 percent in four years.”

Congress and states are trying to legislate a solution which will never work. This problem needs to be solved at the university level. If the professor assigns readings that are online, there is no cost and the quality is probably the same and textbook price gouging will end.

But it will all be too late for me. My daughters will have graduated long before a solution is found. Maybe with file sharing like Textbook Torrents, the text book industry will go the way of the record store and future parents wont have to deal with textbook insanity.