No

by B. B. James

Created on: October 25, 2009

The premise of the question about the high cost of text books assumes that textbook costs are too high. This is not necessarily true. I think it can be argued that textbooks are a great bargain. Consider the two elements of a typical college course: a lecture or discussion led by a professor, and texts to read. Which costs more? The average cost for a course at a US public university is about $1800 (based on four courses per semester and an average public school tuition of $7200 per semester, according to the US Department of Education). The average cost of a textbook is $63. That book costs the equivalent of about one hour of time in a course - or only about 30 minutes in a private college or university, where tuition costs are twice as high.

What do you get for that $63? You get carefully researched and presented information on a specific topic. You get analysis that includes the context of the matter - for example, a textbook about early Christianity would discuss the social conditions in the area where Christianity flourished, as well as Christianity itself. You get competing points of view. You get references for further information. You get a permanent reference document to which you can refer during the course and afterwards. And you get much more. You get an immense amount of information that's been distilled into an efficient form - plus, it's packaged neatly into something you can carry in your sack.

Compare that to the actual in-person course. The course might be a rambling lecture by an unprepared graduate student or a bored professor. It might be a discussion group in which two or three loudmouth students who don't know much dominate the conversation. It might be a lecture by a professor with a particular point of view, but the lack of willingness to share the other viewpoints. Or, the lecture could go by too quickly for the student to grasp the concepts on the first attempt.

Suddenly, a textbook seems like a pretty good deal.

Now, consider the alternatives to the allegedly over-priced textbooks. Prices on textbooks could be reduced. But that would reduce professors' interest in writing them. The professors would be content to share their knowledge only amongst their peers in obscure journals. Or, you could make photocopies of key pages from textbooks. But that's theft because those books are copyrighted, and the copying can't be done without permission and payment of a fee. Or, you could abandon using textbooks. But that requires a professor and students to scramble to get information from a multitude of sources and to pick through them for the pertinent train of thought - which is tough to do in a course that lasts a single semester. Those smaller texts are best used as complements to the textbook, not as substitutes. Or, you could use online sources instead of printed textbooks. This last solution, of course, is being incorporated to a greater extent every year, and it's a positive trend. But those online sources should include peer-reviewed, reliable information, not just any random website that a student can find. And how do you get those peer-reviewed, reliable sources? By paying them, of course. And that's what book publishers do.

In short, you can't get away from textbooks as the important framework of a college curriculum. And you will get what you pay for: If you try to get your basic information on the cheap, you'll have low-quality information, and you'll be wasting your time in college.

Learn more about this author, B. B. James.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.