Why Open Textbooks Are Better
After being out of school for 13 years, I decided to go back to gain new programming skills. When I registered for my classes, I looked up the textbooks the instructors assigned. To my amazement, the cost of textbooks were astronomical. Sure, textbooks were expensive over a decade ago, but I didn’t have to spend a whole paycheck on one book!
I have also had the unique experience of working in a college bookstore. I would see students come into the store, look at the price of their books, and walk right out. I have had parent of students yell at me about the expensive books, as if I actually set the prices. I have also seen students or parents have their credit cards declined because they can’t afford the books.
The growing cost of tuition is difficult enough, but when you add in textbook costs, that can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Unfortunately, I have seen students drop out of classes because of book costs. Then there are students who attempt to do the class without the textbook and end up failing the class.
Sometimes I would recommend that the parents or students try to find the book for cheaper online. However, more than likely the cheaper books online are older editions, and usually the professor wants to use the most recent edition. You just can’t win here…
Why are textbooks so expensive?
- Monopoly – Technically five publishers in the United States have a monopoly on the $7 billion college textbook industry, so they can get away with setting higher prices. According to Textbook Equity, “the top three parent publishers, Pearson, Cengage, and McGraw-Hill accounted for 74% of the textbooks sold, each with over a 20% share. This is why they can get away with charging nearly $300 for a French book!
- Under the table – Some publishers “pay” professors under the table to use their textbooks in classes. Compensation doesn’t necessarily mean money exchanged. I had a professor tell me once that he was using a particular textbook because the publisher offered him discounts for a new laptop and credit on professional development certification. It turns out that the textbook he used is not the best book on the market for teaching that particular subject, but it offered him incentives. Maybe that’s great for the instructor, but not for the students.
- Unaware Professors – Some professors are just unaware and are not in touch with their students’ financial limitations. This is more true at expensive private schools where tuition is 50 or 60K a year and the professors are given a couple hundred thousand dollars in yearly tenured salary. If a professor is “teaching” a class with a couple hundred students in the room, but their graduate assistants are doing all the teaching, they are most likely have no idea how much students are suffering financially.
- School Policy – A school might have a long-term contract with a particular publisher and is not willing to change policy. This is seen especially at public colleges and universities.
So there is this growing movement to bring “open textbooks” to campus. Open textbooks are are the same as commercial textbooks, but they have an open copyright license that can be accessed and shared by both students and professors. You can either get the e-textbook for free online or purchase the hardcover for very little money. They are written and reviewed by other professors. Instructors can adapt it for their class, add or change material and remove unnecessary chapters that won’t be used in class. According to Student PIRG, students save on average 80 percent on textbook costs when they use open materials. A growing number of schools are going this route as an alternative to pricey textbooks.
Open textbooks also fits in perfectly with the larger open education community, which is being led by Khan Academy and MIT’s OpenCourseWare.
David Wiley is one of the most visible college professors leading the open education movement. He gave an interesting talk on this subject at TED a few years ago.
It’s time to make education a priority, not money.