College Text books: A Pricy Subject
As a poor college student, I often wondered why text books were so ridiculously overpriced. I was shocked to find out that the costs of textbooks were rising at twice the rate of inflation. A main factor contributing to the increased prices is the used textbook market.
As consumers we contribute to the rising prices of textbooks because of the used text book market. For example, textbook companies pay money to print, edit and publish their books. We deny them their profit when we sell our used textbooks to one another when it didn’t cost us anything to produce them. As a result, the textbook companies have to raise their prices in order to receive a high enough profit to keep them in business. I’m sure that a very popular individual choice that most people would make would be to buy a used textbook to receive the greatest benefit. However, is it possible that if everyone started to buy new textbooks rather than used ones that the price of textbooks might eventually decline if companies were making a greater profit?
9 comments:
I do not believe everyone buying new textbooks would drop the price of them. If everyone were to purchase new textbooks, the demand for them would increase which could drive the price up even more. Most textbooks used; especially here at Marietta college are not more than a year or two old. Therefore, there are not many used books out there. The few people that do find a used book should not be that great of a loss for the company.
I can see how potentially the prices in text books might lower after time if enough students bought them, but I don't think students are willing to pay for the new books when they can still get the used ones for cheaper. It is a good thought, but not likely to happen.
I think we can have two different stand points. On one hand, if less used textbooks are sold, it may increase the demand of new books, and therefore lower the price as the article argued; on the other hand, if let the publishers reduce the price first, many students may turn to new textbooks if their marginal benefits is larger than the difference between new and used books, so the publishers’ profits will increase as well. However, the problem is that it’s difficult to evaluate which one will lead to more profits. Additionally, I suspect one of the reasons why the new textbooks are deadly expensive is that the publishers have to pay the authors a large amount of money for their works and for getting the copyright to publish the textbooks. So, I assume the price will still keep that high for a long time.
I believe that if we all bought new text books that there would be no change and/or it could actually make prices rise. I am kind of comparing it to gas. companies know that there are always going to be college students and they are going to need textbooks. Just like gasoline, the companies that this is always going to be around. I feel that if we would start buying new text books, we would not save anything!!
I believe that it is impossible to decrease the prices by all students buying new textbooks. On the contrary, I insist if most students join up to buy used textbooks, the prices of textbooks would go down, because companies have to give up a part of their benefits to attract people. In that case, they cannot keep rising the prices of textbooks because this move might let them lose much more buyers. Furthermore, if the companies do so, when the prices are unbelievable high, I think government won’t allow this situation, and use intervention to decline the prices by force. However, we have to persuade our professors to stop changing our textbooks for hundreds of times, first.
I feel that we don't need to buy new textbooks and that we can continue to use the current method that most college students are doing now. This involves a student selling their textbook to another student or trading textbooks with one another. Also, another thing that we must look at is that textbook companies are constantly making new editions and volumes that we have to buy new in order to stay current with todays information. These are just some viewpoints that I thought of while reading the original post.
I think it is impossible for many companies to decrease the prices. On one hand, companies want to get the most profit; it means that they will make marginal benefit as large as they can. And companies should pay for author and publisher a part of money, in fact, it is a large part. Therefore, it is difficult to decrease the prices. On the other hand, I don’t think many people want to buy new textbooks. For instance, Marietta College’s used textbooks are cheaper and not so old. Of course, many students want to buy used textbooks. Thus, I believe it is difficult to decrease the prices and reduce the number of people who buy used textbooks.
I feel if everybody did start buying new books that the pricwe of new books would decline. However, I do not see this happening. People are not going to buy new books for twice the costs, just in hopes of the market price for a new book going down. Also, most people are only in college for four years, this solution you mentioned would probably take longer than that, so I really don't see anybody volunteering to pay more money in hopes of prices falling years later.
I see the possibility that if all students began to buy text books at the full price that the price of text books could go down but, I do not believe that this could really happen. Even if all students did begin to buy books at full price the amount of time it would take for the price to lower would prove to take much longer than we will be in college. On the other hand if all text books are being sold new then what will happen to all of the old textbooks, a lot of money would be lost on the resale of old testbooks when many used textbooks are in almost the same condition as most new books. I agree that I just could not see many people volunteering to pay more to see the price fall in later years.
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