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How To Reduce Textbook Prices Benefit College Students

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Textbook prices have reached outrageously high numbers! Today there are many college students who are struggling in making a decision between paying for their rent, or paying for their college textbooks. This has also limited students’ abilities to attend classes which require expensive textbooks. However, there are multiple ways to help make college textbooks more affordable for all students. Some examples include using open online resources, and textbooks made by colleges and universities, or even a combination of the two. Tennessee can be a leader in making education affordable while also making a great investment in students who are the future of the United States and the world. All of which, can be done by helping to reduce the high costs …show more content…

Not to mention, many students are struggling to pay for the large sums of money for required college textbooks (Rathert 1). For many students, textbook prices add up to a total of $400 to $1000 (Hammond 1). Overall, textbook prices are too high, and many “new editions” which come out roughly every three years are not helping. Most of the minor changes in newer versions of textbooks are just different practice tests, and content rearrangements (Friedl 2). Publishing companies do whatever they can to continue making profits, even if it means outpricing students. On average, textbook prices are raised about 6% every year due to “new editions” being created and printed (Friedl 2). This has been affecting the accessibility of quality education for many students, and must be put to an end. Without access to affordable textbooks, students won’t be able to complete many of their courses. However, to combat this, Tennessee has passed “a law requiring on-campus bookstores to notify professors of the costs of the books they assign” (Friedl 1). The used book market used to work until publishing companies have come up with methods to ensure that colleges buy newer editions of textbooks. An example of this is when a textbook publisher comes out with a new edition of a textbook and stops printing the previous edition. If …show more content…

Tennessee has already passed laws to make professors aware of textbook prices (Friedl 1). However, with forced new editions of textbooks, the prices are renewed, and used books are unavailable. Education is a great investment because it generally helps people to earn higher income which in return, will allow people to pay higher amounts of money in taxes. A great way the state of Tennessee can help reduce costs of textbooks is by removing sales tax on textbooks. Sure, 9.25% is not a very high percentage. However, 9.25% of $900 is roughly eighty-four dollars. Eighty-four dollars is enough to buy an additional textbook that could be used for another class. Regulations should be set in place to encourage companies to charge less for textbooks, and to slow down the high rate of textbook price inflation. Examples of regulations to be considered include the following: a required percentage of content changes and/or updates in new textbook editions, and taxing textbook publishers based on profit margins of textbooks. While the second regulation may seem extreme, with it, textbook publishers will be encouraged to keep profits low to avoid paying higher tax

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