Dear U.S. Department of Education:
I am writing this letter to propose some problems and their solutions concerning textbooks. Whether it’s the cost, wastefulness, or the hassle it gives students, it is time for the textbook problem to be addressed. The text book issue really started to bother me when I spent $256.00 on one textbook in the spring of 2007. After that, I started paying more attention to other textbook related problems. For your convenience, I summarized the problems textbooks are causing, such as price and profligacy, and I have also provided my suggestions on how to solve these problems.
The first problem is that price of textbooks are rapidly growing higher and higher each year. The growing tuition cost has become a heavy financial burden for students, and the price of textbooks are an addition to student’s expenses. “Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks; that is twenty percent of tuition at an average university and half of tuition at a community college. Textbook prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994 and continue to rise (Standing up to Powerful Interest).”
The problem of textbook prices skyrocketing, are mainly due to the fact the lifetime of textbooks becomes shorter and shorter. Currently, one edition of a textbook may only be used for two or three years, and then the newer edition will come and replace the older one. A study by the California Student Public Interest Research Group found that the average release time between textbook editions is 3.8 years, regardless of whether the information has changed since the previous version. Of the textbooks surveyed, new editions cost 58 percent more than the older version, rising to an average cost of $102.44. Several times when I was trying to sell my textbooks back to the university book store, I was told that the textbooks were no longer in the buy-back list, because a newer edition will be used next semester. “Some college and public-interest groups charge that the publishing industry is forcing textbook prices higher by introducing unnecessary new editions and packaging books with expensive study materials that not all students want or need. The National Association of College Bookstores says wholesale prices of college textbooks have risen nearly 40 percent in the past five years (Pressler E01).”
A third problem is that not all the chapters included in the textbook are used for the lecture and study during the semester. Many textbooks include chapters that are not needed for the course. I have finished about thirty classes so far; in none of them have I finished all the chapters included in the textbook. Some of them even left one third or even more of the chapter never used due to many reasons. West’s legal environment of business, for example, has twenty-eight chapters and nine appendices, but the class schedule shows only twenty-one lecture days excluding exams. Human biology, for another example, has twenty-four chapters, but we barely finished eight chapters for the first half semester. No matter if those materials are used or not, students still have to pay for them. Obviously, this is not fair and wasteful.
Fourthly, textbooks are not only expensive but also heavy and bulky. Intermediate accounting, for example, has more than one thousand four hundred pages and weight more than 9 pounds. I have six classes and one lab class this semester and most of them are scheduled on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I have to pack two backpacks; one of them weights more than 20 pounds. I have to rush to my car during class break time to change the backpacks. I also noticed that many students’ backpacks are bigger and heavier than mine.
Through careful analyzation and observation, I found out that solving those problems is not a very hard thing; instead, it is relatively easy. I am suggesting the following four ideas for solving those problems, as well as a reference for your decision making.
First, the useable life of textbooks can be simply extended, so one edition of a textbook can be used for many times. Publishers like to keep publishing newer edition of the same textbook within a relatively short time period. But the differences between the two editions are very limited, especially for most of the basic sciences and general studies classes. Take Calculus as an example to illustrate this problem; I have three different editions of Calculus at home, which even includes a Chinese edition of Calculus. Through carefully comparing those three books, I found that they are only distinguished from each other by different examples, pictures, designs, and focus points, etc. The basic math theories haven’t changes for several hundred years, and it does not seem likely to be changed in the foreseeable thirty or fifty years, so why does the book change so fast? By doing so, publishers simply have one purpose—making more money. We can use older textbooks for the study of the theory, and use other means, such as Internet, to get more recent examples and realistic use of the theory. Extending the useable life of textbooks could guarantee that students can resell their textbook at the end of the semester so that they only end up paying a portion of the total cost for using textbooks. In addition, if one edition of the textbook has been reused for many times, its resell price would become lower and lower, so it’s final or salvage price would become closer and closer to the potion paid by former users.
Secondly, e-books and e-sources will be good substitutes for the traditional textbooks. Today, due to the popularity of computers and the development of Internet, the world is getting into the E-era. All kind of E-programs, such as E-mail, E-paper, E-bill, E-statement, become common things among people’s daily lives. E-book is a program that offers electronic textbooks. E-books are cheaper than traditional textbooks due to not needing to be printed out, and therefore, can also save a lot of trees and protect the environment. In fact, many high education book publishers, such as Wiley, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson already sell electronic editions of their published textbooks. Some of them even sell their E-books chapter by chapter so students can just buy chapters that will be used for the class eliminating the need to pay for those not used. On the other hand, many universities have adopted the E-learning and blackboard education programs. The adoption of those computer related programs provides great conveniences for both faculty and students. Professors can put their notes, announcements, homework, and exams online and e-mail all the students instantaneously. Students can get all the information they need from the E-learning website, and do their homework, quiz, and even exam online and get the grade immediately. Instead of hauling around numerous textbooks, all students need to do is pack their laptops within their backpacks.
A third solution is making the requirement for textbooks optional. Many professors prefer their own slides or notes rather than the textbooks. They do not or rarely follow textbooks; instead, they always focus on the points for which they think are important or interesting. My wife, for example, teaches tissue engineering this semester. She did not require students who took her class to buy the textbooks, because the material that she used was extracted from more than three books. It is not fair to require students to buy all three books. She believes when students use lecture notes, library materials, and online searching, they can learn and master more information than one textbook can offer.
One university with thirty thousand students, such as the University of Alabama, has enough power to bargain with any textbook publisher; this is another way to solve textbooks’ problems. The university can ask publishers to publish textbooks with fewer chapters for a low price, or encourage publishers to sell their E-books chapter by chapter. The university can also choose its textbook providers through bid, which will increase the competition between publishers. On the other hand, the university can also increase the stocked textbook volumes at libraries and encourage students to use the libraries materials as well as online research. They could aslo encourage professors to improve the qualities of their lecture slides or notes, so students do not need to buy textbooks. As a result, textbook costs will be no longer a problem for students.
Through the above analysis, it is easy to find out that solving textbook related problems are not very difficult and it does not have any extra cost for the university. Professors and administrations can do a lot to hepl in the restraint of high prices, but Congress should require publishers to limit practices that drive up the cost of a college education. In contrast, it would save a lot of money for students and greatly release some of their financial burden. The solution also encourages colleges and universities to go green and protect our planet. But it will not become true without your serious consideration, so I truthfully hope you will give serious thought to these suggestions. Your help will be greatly appreciated by all the students of America.
Sincerely yours,
Junsheng Guo
Works Cited
Pressler, Margaret. "Textbook Prices On the Rise." Washington Post Sep. 2004: E01. Print.
"Affordable Textbooks." Standing Up To Powerful Interest. 2009. CALPRIG, Web. 16 Oct 2009.
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