Black-clad mourners draped in shawls and clutching tissues looked on sadly at piles of textbooks next to cardboard coffins and tombstones in a corner of the University Bookstore on Tuesday.
“These books died at a very young age by the release of new editions,” mourner Courtney Anglin said.
Anglin, in her second year studying political science at Lane Community College, is the state board chair of Oregon Student Public Interest
Research Group, which released “Ripoff 101: 2nd Edition,” a report detailing practices in the publishing industry that increase textbook prices.
The report was published by the State Public Interest Research Groups’ Higher Education Project. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index cited in the report, textbook prices have increased at more than four times the inflation rate for all finished goods since 1994. Some of the main reasons for this are the release of new textbook editions every three years, the practice of bundling textbooks with other materials such as workbooks and compact discs and charging American students higher prices than students in other countries for the same textbooks.
Textbooks that come bundled with additional materials cost, on average, 10 percent more than the book would without additional materials. Sometimes the difference is as high as 47 percent, according to the report. However, 65 percent of the faculty surveyed in the 2004 edition of “Ripoff 101” said they used bundled items “rarely” or “never.”
Stephen Gladfelter, a math instructor at Lane Community College who spoke at the event, described ways bundled materials can cause problems in the classroom.
“The different problems in the workbook weren’t really a representative sample of the problems in the book,” Gladfelter said of a book he had taught from.
Some books also come bundled with answer keys. While answer keys are intended to help students check their work, Gladfelter said they are often misused.
“Obviously students have to take some responsibility for their own habits, but to have this bundled with the text makes it a little too tempting,” he said.
Bookstore Textbook and General Team Leader Chris Standish said the bookstore encourages faculty not to order books packaged in bundles.
“We let the faculty know that by requesting bundles, they’re restricting access to used books,” Standish said. “We engage in bundle-busting, and I think that’s a really good thing for our students.”
Despite the efforts of schools and students, textbook prices are still increasing. Gladfelter said the textbook for an intermediate algebra class he recently taught cost $95, more than any of the textbooks he bought when he took graduate-level math classes five years ago.
“For a book that’s not even at the college-transfer level to cost more than a graduate-level book doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” he said.
ASUO President Adam Petkun said textbooks represent up to half the cost of attending community colleges and almost a fifth of the cost at some four-year colleges.
“This is a trend that puts students deeper in debt and puts access to higher education on its deathbed,” Petkun said.
