Updated textbooks raise prices, students suffer

JILLIAN MILAM JGM726@CABRINI EDU ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR

It’s the dreaded moment that every student, or parent for that matter, awaits semester after semester The jaw-dropping, eyepopping, mind-boggling price of textbooks. Why are the prices so extreme and where does all of the money go?

“The used book market,” Ray Mesing, salesman and field editor for a publishing company called Prentice Hall, said. “For me, this is the main reason as to why the prices of textbooks have increased.”

About 10 to 15 years ago, there were no such things as companion web sites or power point slides. Once a companion web site was created, other businesses had to raise the bar as well, eventually shutting other companies down.

“The cost of extraneous things adds to it. Web sites are free, power points are free. You know, we’re not good-natured people and we don’t just give things away,” Mesing said. “All of it costs money and somebody has to pay for it.”

Therefore, paper itself became more expensive. Then the used book market phenomenon took over and has affected publishing companies immensely.

“We used to do revisions of books every five or six years. Now, we do it every two or three years. Before used books came about, we would lose money for the first two years of the new book cycle, break even on the third year and then make money the last three years,” Mesing said.

This cycle was efficient and kept everybody content since publishers could keep the prices down. However, used books altered this five or six year cycle and forced publishers to make their profit during the book’s first year

“It’s like a car dealership. The salesman sells a car for the first time, brand new They make money when the car is first off the lot, not on used cars,” Mesing said. “I still have to support it with supplements, like raising the price to offset the different year cycle.”

Other supplements might include the infamous CDs that are attached to books, which at times seem to serve merely as worthless price-boosters as opposed to educational tools.

“I bought my history textbook and thought that I would need it for class,” Jess Bailey, sophomore education major, said. “But it turned out I didn’t…plus it came with some CD which was just a waste of money because we never had to use it!”

Follett Higher Education Group, the country’s largest bookstore retailer that serves as Cabrini’s bookstore distributor, recognizes the fact that the concept of adding packages such as CDs is aiding to the problem of expensive textbooks. Michele Kennedy, Cabrini’s bookstore manager, explained that if a professor requests a shipment of textbooks that contain any type of package, employees of the bookstore will pick up the phone to call that professor and make sure he or she definitely wants that certain book and if they truly need the CD.

“Sometimes the teachers will say ‘no, we don’t need the CD that comes with it,’” Kennedy said. “So we send out a search to our 3 main used book sources to find the books without the CDs.”

According to Acumen, a Follett Newsletter For Faculty, a recent study proved that one of

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Bush had “asked lawmakers to raise the amount that students in their first two years of college can borrow from the government’s direct-and guaranteed-studentloan programs.” This money would come from some of the $10.4 billion.

The Chronicle said programs that “help motivate and prepare low-income students for college” would also be disposed of. Savings from “the programs would be transferred into a block grant that states could use in a variety of ways ‘to increase the achievement of high-school students,’ according to budget documents.”

Upon approval, the Pell Grants would begin functioning in structure more like Medicare or Social Security. Limits would be set as to how long students could receive Pell Grants; however, recipients would be able to use the award year-round. Although being able to use this award year-round, the maximum Pell Grant would only cover “a quarter of the cost of attending a four-year public institution by 2010, 10 percentage points less than it does now.” Additionally, students would only be able to use the award for eight years, or

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