Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Jacob Mitchell, Newton fifth-year senior, said he would spend up to $500 on textbooks this semester for his four classes.
“It’s definitely hard enough as it is,” he said. “Knowing I will only be able to sell back one of them is disappointing.”
Students at the University of Kansas aren’t the only ones stretching their budgets for books. Beginning in 1986, textbook prices have increased 186 percent since December 1986, according to a study released August 16th by the Government Accountability Office. Comparatively, the overall rate of inflation was 72 percent.
According to www.gao.gov, the agency conducted the study to determine what has changed in textbook prices and what factors contributed to that change.
Taylor Miller / KANSAN
Chris Cahill, Olathe freshman, finishes buying books last week at the KU Bookstores in the Kansas Union. To promote sales KU Bookstores gave away eight packs of Coca-Cola.
The study found that the 6-percent-per-year increase in price was caused mainly by publishers investing in supplements, such as online courseware and CD-ROMs, rather than an increase in the price of the textbook itself.
“Regrettably, there has been an increase in tendency by publishers and instructors to buy books with bundles that students find they don’t need,” Bill Muggy, Jayhawk Bookstore owner, said.
Publishers decide the rising prices, and Jayhawk Bookstore adjusts accordingly, Muggy said. He said the bookstore charged the customer an average of 22.5 percent more than what it paid to a particular publisher.
Muggy said customers who needed books showed a greater resistance to buy them. He said instructors seemed to be oblivious about the cost of textbooks and did not care about the end cost to the students.
“If the instructor orders a book, we expect them to use it,” he said. “The hope is it will have a life afterwards.”
Robert Goldstein, professor of geology, said he was conscientious of students’ textbook prices. Two courses he teaches, one being a prerequisite of the other, require the same textbook. That way students taking both classes have to buy only one book.
Mitchell said that in his four previous years at KU, he used supplemental material in only one class. It was a CD-ROM that came with the textbook, and he said he did not find it that useful.
Jonathan Kealing/KANSAN
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