Savannah Sperry
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In an era where digital content flows almost boundlessly, the college textbook industry is among a marginal few who have remained insulated from the trend of easier and less expensive access to information.
According to The College Board, the estimated cost of textbooks and course-related supplies for the typical student at a four-year public university is $1,200 per year. This expense isn’t included in tuition — it’s an added cost.
Environmental management freshman Dan Canella took matters into his own hands with his creation of The Great Cal Poly Textbook Repository, a Reddit page consisting of PDF forms of Cal Poly textbooks — until he was forced to take the site down.
“It’s a captive market. You have no other option. You must have a textbook or, you know, good luck passing your class,” Canella said. “And they know that. They know that there’s nowhere else you can get it from, you have to go through the publisher, your university store or Amazon, and they all want to make more money, so they’re not going to just voluntarily do the right thing and give affordable prices and it’s just, I don’t know, greed? Who knows.”
Weeks after the Reddit post was made, Canella received a letter from a law firm representing several major publishing companies, including Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Elsevier, asking him to take the page down.
The letter, Canella said, demanded he delete The Great Cal Poly Textbook Repository and any copies of textbooks he had, giving him a week to comply lest legal sanctions be taken against him.
“Within a day I complied with everything they asked me to do and deleted the webpage,” Canella said.
Using his own collection of textbook PDFs and reaching out to other students to collect more, Canella had uploaded more than 100 PDF files to the Reddit page before it was deleted.
Professors also feel a strain from requiring students to purchase expensive course materials.
Political science professor Chris Den Hartog is often approached by textbook sales representatives to use their books for his student-heavy American government class.
“I get emails and knocks on the doors from publisher’s sales reps constantly — I mean constantly,” Den Hartog said.
Publishers may offer professors teaching incentives for using their textbooks.
“Many of the book publishers when they’re trying to get me to use their book will say, ‘Hey, this book comes with all of these great features like a text bank and pre-written class slides and materials,’ so they’re trying to make it as automatic as possible for someone to teach the class,” Den Hartog said.
Den Hartog has no intention of making his teaching style “automatic.”
“For me, I don’t want it to be automatic because I know how I want to teach it and I don’t want to teach it their way. I can imagine some people who teach a class that’s not really their expertise and that might be appealing,” Den Hartog said.
Ellen Curtis, Cal Poly Corporation director of marketing and communication, wrote a press release to Mustang News on the topic of courseware available from the University Store.
According to the press release, the cost of a textbook is determined by a variety of factors including the publisher’s costs, the book’s availability and the age of the book.
The cost is also dependent on the time at which the book is ordered: “Buying a book at the height of the season or last minute adds to the book’s expense,” the release read.
The Cal Poly university store has made strides to make textbook options cheaper for students.
Among many efforts listed on the release were “Cutting our margins to be more competitive,” “Working with faculty to get their book orders in early to take advantage of lower pricing” and “Increasing the quantities as well as easing up on the condition of the books we buyback.”
Textbook buybacks are made for up to 50 percent of the original purchase price. Buyback prices are determined by the condition of the book and whether or not faculty will continue using the book in the next school term.
“Know that if you buy your book at the University Store, your money goes back into supporting the University. (The same isn’t true of purchasing a book on Amazon or at other retailers.) Also, the more books bought at the University store means more books are likely to be bought back and available for the next student,” the release states. “It’s a pay it forward scenario.”