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Textbooks in the News

Friday, April 8, 2005

Professors blast high textbook prices

By David Mehegan
Boston Globe

The controversy over the price of college textbooks heated up Thursday as more than 700 math and physics faculty members at 150 colleges called on Thomson Learning, one of the nation's biggest textbook publishers, to reform its policies on pricing and new editions.

In two similar letters focused on books in their fields, the professors referred to research compiled last year by the California Public Interest Research Group and sibling organizations, including Massachusetts PIRG, which found that the average student spends $900 per year on textbooks. The organizations maintain that college text prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation for other finished goods since 1994.

Writing to Ronald H. Schlosser, chief executive officer of Thomson Learning, the educational division of Thomson Corp., the math professors complained that the fifth edition of "Calculus: Early Transcendentals," priced at $122, was not substantially different from the fourth edition, which was on the market for only three years. "We do not believe the content of this particular update justified an entirely new edition," the professors wrote. They also criticized Thomson for pricing the same books higher in the United States than in Europe and elsewhere.

The letter from the physics professors made the same points while alluding to physics texts. Both letters were put together by CalPIRG staffers in association with concerned faculty.

Several faculty members contacted Thursday said they had become increasingly concerned with skyrocketing prices for new editions where little content had changed.

"I think of teaching as a form of public service," said Bradley Ballinger, professor of mathematics at the University of California at Davis. "Publishers, I thought, were victimizing students to a large extent, thinking of them as an extension of their parents' wallets. If you price things so that only parents can afford them, you put them out of reach of students who don't have wealthy parents."

"As a student in Zurich, I had very affordable textbooks," said Oliver Knill, who teaches mathematics at Harvard University. "I am shocked nowadays that one has to pay $140 for a book which doesn't contain new material. All these things have been written about many times."

Dave Rosenfeld, California-based program director for the PIRG organizations around the country, stressed that Toronto-based Thomson, whose educational publishing had $2.2 billion in sales in the United States last year, was not alone among publishers. "The practice of producing useless new editions is rampant in the textbook industry," Rosenfeld said.

Thomson disagrees with the complaints. "Given that we pioneered low-cost textbooks and offer the greatest range of choices, I find it troubling that PIRG feels obligated to target us directly," Susan Badger, chief executive of Thomson's college text division, said in a prepared statement Thursday. "Our mission at Thomson Learning has always been to give our customers exactly what they want."

Textbook prices have long been a sore point with students, who are shocked to discover that they have to pay as much as $150 for an introductory book in math or science, and that the used copy in the bookstore is not usable because it has been supplanted by a new edition.

"It is an issue," said Asjah Monroe, 22, of Dorchester, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "You never know what it's going to cost you each semester. Some professors are considerate and will try to choose affordable books, but some will give you three books. I have spent $300 for books and had to put them on my credit card."

Many faculty members who signed the letters say they understand that the publishers have to make a profit, and that the issues of cost and pricing are complex. Nevertheless, until now, faculty have not weighed in on the discussion in an organized way. In the peculiar nature of textbook buying, the professors choose them, often without heed to the prices, but the students must pay for them.

"It is very much a concern to me," said Michael Dennin, professor of physics at the University of California at Irvine and chairman of the undergraduate curriculum committee, who was active in seeking signatories to the physics letter.

"I have never seen good data on what is a fair balance between textbook companies being able to make a fair profit, and the students having a reasonable level of cost. I think the students have reasonable questions. What I hope to gain is some useful dialogue."

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