Back to school sticker shock on texbooks
Heading back to school? Get ready to throw down a chunk of change - or more likely credit card - to cover the costs of those books. A new report by the Government Accountability Office found that prices have been rising faster and faster:
Over all, the GAO report finds that college textbook prices nearly tripled between 1986 and 2004, rising 186 percent, or an average of 6 percent a year, during that time. Tuition and fees, meanwhile, rose 7 percent a year and prices for all goods have risen an average of 3 percent a year in that span.
Check out the article and an action web site.
Over all, the GAO report finds that college textbook prices nearly tripled between 1986 and 2004, rising 186 percent, or an average of 6 percent a year, during that time. Tuition and fees, meanwhile, rose 7 percent a year and prices for all goods have risen an average of 3 percent a year in that span.
Check out the article and an action web site.
posted by Anonymous at 9:08 AM
9 Comments:
And yet according to government sources, inflation is mild at worst. Might they be lying to hide the cost of war?
And they said war is supposed to be good for the economy...hmph.
This doesn't likely have anything to do with gov't, the war, or indeed even inflation. It has to do with economics. What do you expect to happen in a market with no consumer choice, and in which products are both produced and sold by the people responsible for directing sales?
Or to put it more concretely, have you ever noticed how many professors assign textbooks written by themselves, published their own university's press, and sold in the campus bookstore? Why wouldn't they want the price go up in that situation?
This blog SUCKS. With everything going on in the world, this is what RTV is posting on it's blogs.
What about
-Able Danger being blocked by lawyers from passing info on the 9-11 bombers that they identified a year before the attack
-The state dept memo that talked warned our gov't about Bin Laden in 1996
-The Jewish withdrawal from Gaza
-The deficit projections being lowered
-The Iraqi Gov't finalizing its constitution
-The Washington post story yesterday about a chemical weapons lab discovered in Mosul
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html
wow, noid and brandi, you are stupid beyong belief. since when do text books have anything to do with wartime production? like the previous anonymous said, when you have a market where the suppliers are in full control of the pricing structures with a forced choice for consumers, lo and behold you have price gouging. and inflation is calculated or estimated from the CPI which is composed of a market basket of products that most American consumers purchase or use. I don't think college text books are in that basket. Try to learn something in college.
Prices on just about everything non-technology related are going up far beyond what the government suggests with its CPI and other inflation measures. Textbooks are included in this. Or haven't you noticed the declining dollar? Perhaps they don't teach that at your college.
I propose a new solution:
Don't read.
This blog SUCKS. With everything going on in the world, this is what RTV is posting on it's blogs.
That's because the AARP doesn't pay them to post about other things!
www.bookfaced.com Forget campus bookstores, and don't waste your time searching online. Bookfaced is a new service which students are starting to use on my campus. Bookfaced localizes textbook resale to your campus. Sell your books to, or find the books you need from, other students on your campus. There's no shipping. This thing is starting to catch at my school. Read more about it on their site, www.bookfaced.com, it's a great idea.
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