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Textbooks: A Value Proposition
11/13/2007
see link).Has the market failed, and are there no alternatives to legislation to control the costs of texts? Maybe, and maybe not. The answers depend on whether faculty, publishers, bookstores, and others involved in the textbook delivery chain can establish new models of information distribution—with faculty changing instructional practices to take advantage of customizable, focused content and digital delivery of that content. Students too must change, opting in to scenarios that have them paying for use of (“renting”), rather than ownership of, instructional course content. Sound radical? Let’s add one additional constraint: new models of providing instructional materials should improve student learning outcomes, even as they reduce costs. Margaret Spellings and her Higher Education Action Agenda would have it no other way.
This focus on learning outcomes is the lever that can move the behaviors of all involved in the “content delivery chain” and, perhaps far more effectively than legislation, nurture a high value to price ratio for learning materials, the ultimate goal of publishers, bookstore operators, faculty, and students.
Textbooks: A Look at the Issues
Let’s put some propositions on the table and support and attack them:The high cost of textbooks is the sole responsibility of the publishers. Probably not: The bookstores, those faculty indifferent to costs (23 percent in Zogby International’s 2006 study, commissioned by the Association of American Publishers), and students who game the system all share responsibility, and together could forge attractive alternatives to the present model of textbook delivery and use. More accurately, it isn’t the agency of any of these players; it is the structure of the textbook industry. The root source of high textbook costs is the “annuity problem,” the fact that first offerings purchased by the first group of students must sustain ever-weakening revenue streams until the book’s “end of life.” Every quarter or semester after the initial release of a new edition, used text offerings cannibalize the publisher’s new book sales. Typically 70 percent of total publisher revenue is tied to the initial offering, and purchases by the first wave of students must cover the lion’s share of royalties, production costs, and profits for the creators of the content.
Used books are the ticket to textbook savings. Studies done by the Wisconsin State System, the Virginia Commonwealth, and others suggest that well-stocked and available used book selections offer the best relief against high textbook prices.
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