Textbook Prices Climbing Rapidly

Doing the required reading will hurt more than ever this year.

Textbook prices at Harvard and across the country have been rising at an alarming rate, faster than inflation, and will hit a high again this year.

According to a study by the College Board, textbook costs have increased nearly 90 percent during the past decade. A similar study by the National Association of College Stores puts the figure at 104 percent.

"People coming to the campus for the first time are definitely shocked," says Charles A. Thodt, director of information and research for the association.

James M. Rosen, the Harvard Coop's textbook buyer, says students will pay 5 percent more for books at the Coop this year than last year. Other college stores are hiking prices an average of 9 percent.

"In the past three years, textbook prices have gone up in excess of the rise in the cost of living," he says. "It's fair to assume that it's going to continue on up."

Harvard's financial aid office estimates that undergraduates will spend $1736 on textbooks and other personal expenses this year. That's up from the $1620 budgeted last year, and the $1545 the year before.

Rosen, who has been buying books for the Coop since 1985, says publishers are making more money at students' expense.

"It's my belief that their profit margins are greater than 10 years ago," he says.

But officials in the publishing industry say students are getting better quality textbooks for the extra cash.

Nicholas A. Veliotes, president of the American Association of Publishers, says the modern textbook costs more to produce because there are more photos and charts.

Veliotes says developing a textbook is a risky venture which requires a "tremendous investment of time and money," especially with "the complex, graphic, audiovisual, and other support materials that now make up the modern package."

Better books or not, many students prefer the cheaper used books.

Rosen says used book sales at the Coop haveskyrocketed over the past five years, increasingmore than 300 percent. Bookstores are respondingto the demand by stocking more used books, butthey can still be hard to come by.

Higher book costs have also prompted professorsto tighten up reading lists or offer sourcebookswith passages taken from several books.

"In general, professors have been veryconscientious in getting the least expensiveeditions," says Jones Professor of Classical GreekLiterature Gregory Nagy.

Officials at Kinko's corporate headquartersreport a steady climb in sourcebook production andsales. A hundred of their stores specialize inmaking sourcebooks.

But even sourcebooks are more expensive thanthey once were, as printing companies get seriousabout enforcing copyright laws and force studentsto absorb publishers' fees.

Rosen says one solution may be compilationssimilar to sourcebooks but with longer texts. Thiscustomized publishing would be cheaper forstudents in the long run, he says.

"Everyone is examining it," he says."Publishers are resisting it but you can't fightthe move."

Meanwhile, students are getting around theproblem by sharing books, skipping booksaltogether, or using the reserved reading.

As book prices rise, students find morecreative ways to save. But sometimes beating thesystem has its price too.

Says one student, Allison K. Hughes '94, "Evenphotocopying gets expensive."You'd Better Shop Around

A prolonged search for textbooks at HarvardSquare can pay off in large savings, as thissample shows:

HISTORICAL STUDY A-12

Title,Author  Barillari  Wordsworth  HBS*  CoopPeloponnesian War,Thucydides  $5.95  $7.16  $5.95  $5.36Force and Statecraft,Craig and George  --  --  13.95  15.00Thirteen Days,Kennedy  --  4.46  --  6.50Bound to Lead,Nye  10.95  9.90  11.00  10.76

MORAL REASONING 32Nicomachean Ethics,Aristotle (Irwin,ed.)  --  7.16  7.95  7.95A Treatise of HumanNature, Hume  --  7.16  7.95  15.00Ethical Philosophy,Kant (Ellington,ed.)  --  --  9.50  9.50On the Geneaology ofMorals,Nietzsche  --  9.00  10.00  8.96

*Harvard Book Store

Source: Harvard Crimson researchCrimsonNancy E. Greene

Rosen says used book sales at the Coop haveskyrocketed over the past five years, increasingmore than 300 percent. Bookstores are respondingto the demand by stocking more used books, butthey can still be hard to come by.

Higher book costs have also prompted professorsto tighten up reading lists or offer sourcebookswith passages taken from several books.

"In general, professors have been veryconscientious in getting the least expensiveeditions," says Jones Professor of Classical GreekLiterature Gregory Nagy.

Officials at Kinko's corporate headquartersreport a steady climb in sourcebook production andsales. A hundred of their stores specialize inmaking sourcebooks.

But even sourcebooks are more expensive thanthey once were, as printing companies get seriousabout enforcing copyright laws and force studentsto absorb publishers' fees.

Rosen says one solution may be compilationssimilar to sourcebooks but with longer texts. Thiscustomized publishing would be cheaper forstudents in the long run, he says.

"Everyone is examining it," he says."Publishers are resisting it but you can't fightthe move."

Meanwhile, students are getting around theproblem by sharing books, skipping booksaltogether, or using the reserved reading.

As book prices rise, students find morecreative ways to save. But sometimes beating thesystem has its price too.

Says one student, Allison K. Hughes '94, "Evenphotocopying gets expensive."You'd Better Shop Around

A prolonged search for textbooks at HarvardSquare can pay off in large savings, as thissample shows:

HISTORICAL STUDY A-12

Title,Author  Barillari  Wordsworth  HBS*  CoopPeloponnesian War,Thucydides  $5.95  $7.16  $5.95  $5.36Force and Statecraft,Craig and George  --  --  13.95  15.00Thirteen Days,Kennedy  --  4.46  --  6.50Bound to Lead,Nye  10.95  9.90  11.00  10.76

MORAL REASONING 32Nicomachean Ethics,Aristotle (Irwin,ed.)  --  7.16  7.95  7.95A Treatise of HumanNature, Hume  --  7.16  7.95  15.00Ethical Philosophy,Kant (Ellington,ed.)  --  --  9.50  9.50On the Geneaology ofMorals,Nietzsche  --  9.00  10.00  8.96

*Harvard Book Store

Source: Harvard Crimson researchCrimsonNancy E. Greene