It’s time to buy those god-awful textbooks! | The Carillon

"One of the most depressing moments of my undergraduate career was when I first set foot inside the university bookstore. I can vividly remember my jaw dropping the first time that I saw the price listings for all my textbooks ...  According to Statistics Canada’s CANSIM database, since 2002 the cost of books (excluding textbooks) for Canadian consumers have dropped by 7.3%. This can be attributed to a multitude of factors such as the significant increase in the parity of the Canadian dollar to the American dollar ($1.5704 USD/CDN in 2002 versus $0.9995 USD/CDN in 2012), increased competition with online retailers and discount wholesalers, and the emergence of E-Books. While the cost for books has decreased during this time span, the cost of textbooks has increased by 28.4%.  The market for textbooks is inherently weird when compared to the traditional market for books and most other goods. The instructors that decide what textbooks are used for a course are not the same individuals that are paying for them. This can become problematic when instructors do not take into consideration the financial ramifications of their choices, because it does not adversely affect them. A study done by the Connecticut Board of Governors for Higher Education found that only 42% of instructors were aware of the costs of the textbooks that they selected for their course. While there are many instructors that take cost into consideration, they have no real incentive to pick the most affordable textbook that results in less pressure for publishers to keep prices low.  The group that typically gets the most backlash for the cost of textbooks are university bookstores. The University of Regina Bookstore sells its textbooks at a 22% markup. According to the University of Regina’s Comprehensive Budget Plan for 2013/14, it expects to make a surplus of $238,000 and a profit margin of 4.18% from revenues of $5,936,000 and expenses of $5,698,000. While university bookstores do make revenues for their respective institutions, they are not as high as most would intuitively think. The more appropriate group to criticize for the rising costs of textbooks would be the textbook publishers ... "