Textbook Price

According to priceonomics.com the College Board recently estimated that the average student spends upwards of $1,200 per year on textbooks. (This figure is much higher for students at for-profit colleges and trade schools.) Between 2002 and 2013, the price of college textbooks rose 82 percent — nearly three times the rate of inflation, according to a recent study by the Government Accountability Office. That is a lot of money for a college student but what makes it even a hard spent money is you will be lucky to get a small fraction of that amount trying to resell the books back to your college. Textbook costs are rapidly increasing overall student debt, with 70 percent of college students now saying they will not purchase one or more required …show more content…
I interviewed two bookstore members: Dawn McIntosh, Director of Marauder Bookstore and JoAnn Coston, book buyer. The first interview was with Dawn McIntosh. I asked her few important questions regarding the textbook business, and she thoroughly answered by stating how the book store struggles to maintain profit enough to remain in business. Many students believe that book stores do profit a good amount and should lower book prices, but McIntosh says otherwise. According to her, the publishers are dictating the book prices, which puts book stores and students at an intermediate disadvantage. The book store determines a profit margin that will sustain them and cover payroll and bills. There is no specific profit margin because there are times where the book store will get a great deal on a certain book and it will profit significantly, and other times where it barely meets the minimum. McIntosh asserts that professors have the absolute authority over which books are chosen and brought to the book store. At this point, it seemed as if publishers and professors were in more control of textbooks than bookstores. Although I obtained some good information I was not yet ready to make a clear