Communications and Media

Francis Bacon, an English Lawyer as well as Philosopher once stated that knowledge is power and that all scholars can attest to the significance of books when more knowledge is desired. However, I find this true but rather difficult to obtain bent on the ever rising cost of college books.

Has anyone of you ever wondered what would happen if something is not done to curb the increasing prices of textbooks Today, I am going to address this challenge from three fundamental facets. First, I will prove to you that college books are expensive, then elaborate the reasons for these high prices and finally offer solutions for making the books cheaper. I will begin by telling you how textbooks are expensive.

College textbooks are expensive
One of major college expenses is textbooks. Today, the college textbook bill in a semester can be as high as 500 per student (Roediger, 2005).  Raising such an amount of money is very difficult for many parents and only proves how inflated the prices of textbooks are.

National Association of College Stores has noted that during the academic year 2006-2007, each student spent an average of 702 on course materials alone (Gosselin, 2010). I can see you have all agreed with me on the first point and many are asking why this is so. I will definitely tell you.
Reasons for high textbook prices

General inflation One cause can be attributed to the roaming general inflation but isnt it evident that these prices are outpacing inflation

Publishers seeking big profit margins To gunner these profits, they end up selling the textbooks at exaggerated prices. Furthermore, many traditional publishing companies have been bought by huge conglomerates whose bottom line is making huge profits.

Cost of production It has increased due to the high quality and content of these books.
Sale of old or used books How does this occur Students are fond of selling textbooks back to the bookstores after using them for one semester. A text book therefore can find its way to the hands of four or five students. The author and the textbook company get profits only the first time the book is sold. This causes textbooks to be priced aggressively since the consequent sales will only benefit companies that specialize in buying and selling used books. You can see that there is need to take action concerning this whole matter. Let us see how we can bring these prices down.

How to reduce textbook prices
Creating an environment free from greed of exploitative publishers You will concur with me that used books are only a temporal solution but creating an environment free from greed of abusive publishers is a true remedy (Huston, 2010).

Pushing for legislation of laws This will ensure reduction in these prices and that publishers reveal all the price details to the respective faculties. One such bill is that of College Cost Reduction and Access Act, passed in 2007 (Lindstrom, 2007).

Purchase low priced books through the internet By comparing different prices and ordering delivery of new textbooks whose prices are not exaggerated. This will force the publishers to lower their prices due to reduced demand (cheaptextbooks.com, 2010).

Conclusion You can realize that we have all it takes to cause these prices be reduced. I have explained to you how textbooks are expensive,reasons for these hidh prices and how they can be reduced.