The price of college textbooks has ballooned in the past 40 years, according to NBC's latest number-crunching. Textbooks are 1041 percent more expensive today than they were in January 1977.
That's unreal, you might say. Actually, that's the market. Economists say that textbook prices have continued to go up, at a rate that's even higher than the rate of inflation, because students need them the same way that drug addicts need a fix—at whatever cost. "They've been able to keep raising prices because students are 'captive consumers,'" said Nicole Allen from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. "[Students] have to buy whatever book they're assigned."
Those on the publishing side may disagree—Marisa Bluestone from the Association of American Publishers argued that students can always rent textbooks or buy them secondhand. But either way, there's no sign that the market will get any better for students: professors are not "price-sensitive" (they don't have to buy those things), so they will continue to assign whatever materials they like. And students will keep having to pay the sticker price.
"I find the prices of college textbooks in general ridiculous," said one Northeastern University student. "But you gotta do what you gotta do." Spoken like a true freshman.
[via NBC News]
