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Textbook swap offers cut-rate prices
Semester after semester, students on campuses across the country voice concerns about out-of-control textbook costs.
Yet year after year, little seems to be done to address the issue.
Over the past two academic years alone, UW-Madison students have seen the average amount paid for textbooks and supplies jump $100 -- from $890 during 2006-07 to an estimated $990 this year, according to a UW System review unveiled at a Board of Regents meeting in December.
When these and other figures were presented, many regents expressed both concern -- and frustration.
"These are books," regent Jeffrey Bartell said at the meeting. "Can't we do something to make these materials affordable to our kids? Why is this so difficult? I just don't understand it."
Instead of waiting for the powers-that-be to take significant action to address the issue, UW-Madison students are continuing to take steps themselves to lessen the burden of soaring costs.
On Monday, Jan. 19, the Associated Students of Madison, UW-Madison's official student government, is hosting a textbook swap at Gordon Commons, 717 W. Johnson St. This not-for-profit event will solely benefit those who participate.
Christopher Tiernan, ASM's academic affairs chair, said books at the swap are priced at 30 percent off what their resale price is at the University Book Store.
Tiernan said the bookstore buys books back at variable rates, depending on how likely a particular text is to resell. But he said his research shows that students will always get more money back by selling through the swap than by returning them to University Book Store, a private organization located at 711 State St. that receives no funding from the university or state.
"This is a way to create a market for students to buy and sell textbooks by eliminating the middle man," Tiernan said.
This is the third textbook swap run by ASM, with the first coming at the start of the spring semester in 2008 and the second prior to the start of the fall semester in 2008.
"They have been hugely successful so far, and we just hope it keeps growing," said Tiernan, who estimates that between 100 and 300 students participated in each of the first two swaps.
According to the student advocacy group MakeTextbooksAffordable.org, there are a couple key factors which make textbooks so expensive. First, there is a lack of competition to keep prices in check, as the textbook market has undergone a wave of consolidation in the last decade. In addition, although students buy the books, they have limited market power because a third party -- generally, faculty -- decides which texts must be purchased for a class.
Perhaps most frustrating to students is the practice of publishers producing new editions of textbooks every couple years, even in courses like calculus or beginning physics -- subjects which haven't changed significantly in years. Yet once a new edition is put on the shelves, students must buy the new book instead of getting a less expensive, used model.
Add it up, and it's easy to understand why a 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that textbooks were increasing at more than twice the rate of inflation over the previous 20 years.
The idea for the ASM textbook swap dates to the fall of 2007, when Tiernan was interning at ASM and Jessica Pavlic was academic affairs chair.
"This is something we both felt was very important," said Tiernan.
According to the UW System, seven of its 13 four-year universities use textbook rental programs in which students pay fees that averaged $145 per school year for access to most books. Although students sometimes have to purchase supplemental reading materials, these rental programs have been recognized as a model for keeping costs in check. Nationally, however, such rental programs are rare; according to the National Association of College Stores, only 1 percent of institutions across the country use such programs.
The UW System's six other universities, including UW-Madison, still require students to purchase books. Of those institutions, UW-Oshkosh is at the low end of the cost scale, with students paying an average of $500 per year. UW-Madison is at the high end, with its $990 total.
These campuses have shied away from rental programs for a range of reasons, including huge startup costs and the lack of flexibility they give faculty to choose or change materials for their courses.
"At research universities (such as UW-Madison), the faculty are constantly changing the materials and also are writing the textbooks themselves, and that introduces another level of complexity to this issue," UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn "Biddy" Martin told the Board of Regents in December. "I think we as chancellors can put a greater emphasis on this. But in the end, I think providing need-based financial aid that covers the costs of books is probably a more expedient way to go in the long term than fighting the publishing industry. That's my view."
In other words, there appear to be no simple answers to tackle the problem of ever-escalating textbook costs.
"I understand that it's complicated, and I understand that dealing with publishers who have different motivations can be difficult," Bartell told the regents in December. "But isn't there something that can be done with faculty, some motivation, that would reward those members of the faculty that take positive steps to reduce the cost of their materials to students? I'm sure that there are those who do it with no reward expected. But maybe there is some way that faculty could be rewarded" for keeping textbook costs down.
Students wishing to participate in this semester's ASM swap can drop textbooks off at Gordon Commons on Sunday, Jan. 18, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The swap itself is on Jan. 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Money and any unsold books can be retrieved from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20.
tfinkelmeyer@madison.com
File photo
On Monday, Jan. 19, the Associated Students of Madison group is hosting a textbook swap at Gordon Commons, 717 W. Johnson St.
