General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The ridiculously high price of college textbooks [View all]HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)there are also a lot more "ancillary" materials that are part of the product. Cut-down versions of bigger texts can save money but not as much as one would think, and the used-book buy back market for the cut downs is very limited and so the buyback's values are often lower--which adds to their relative price..
In 1976, the text for my 1st semester bio class had no color plates, and few photos. The illustrations were generally line drawings. We thought the book expensive at $35 for a new copy--in inflation corrected dollars that's the equivalent of $140. I bought a used copy for ~$20.
Modern intro bio books have color on every page, and almost every page has illustrations that aren't free. Printing technology is much improved now and production costs should be lower, but contemporary books are supported by online webpages, with chapter outlines, concept maps, downloadable illustrations, animations, on-line quizzes
etc. It costs money to host the stuff on-line but the publishers do it to be competitive and the cost goes into the book.
All the things added in...the books are probably not unusually priced in historic terms, but if the book and the ancillaries aren't used...well it's just a lot of money spent on something you don't use. That's always the rub. Some of that depends on how the instructor pitches the course, and some of it depends on whether a student decides reading the text is worth the effort.
Most publishers are glad to produce special editions consisting of selected chapters used by a program or a single instructor. 3 years ago I taught in a program that used such a text. It was a book cut down from a popular advanced high school bio book. It included 9 chapters because the biology for prenursing class I taught only covered 1 chapter--20 pages per week. The book it was cut from had the typical 40+ chapters.
A new hard bound copy of that book cost $150, a new copy of the cut version cost $73. Half the price for 1/4 of the book. In terms of value that book played very differently as a used copy. Students received $10 dollars from the college bookstore... and that was the only place they could sell it. The cut-down version was so specialized to the program I taught in that book buyers refused it.
The full-length textbook was in the used book market. It was and still is available on-line and in private bookstores around many campuses. It had all the chapters, including those of the cutdown version. I recommended students buy it when the campus bookstore ran out of cutdowns...which it almost always did. The buy-back for the complete text was and still is $10-$12...it may or may not include an unused access code for the online materials...depends on whether previous owners went on line, but that can be purchased through the publishers website.