Over the course of a year, the average college student spends more than $1,200 on books and materials, according to the College Board. Of course, the problem with the high and rapidly rising cost of textbooks isn't new.
That allowed students to spend as little as $31 per course on materials, compared to a national average of $153 per course, according to the study. Over the course of a year, the average college student spends more than $1,200 on books and materials, according to the College Board.
The National Association of College Stores reports that students spent an average of US$415 each on required course materials during the 2018-2019 school year. The College Board says students should budget $1,240 annually for books and supplies.
Some colleges work with publishers or bookstores to offer students digital textbook subscriptions. Through these subscriptions, a student pays a subscription fee that gives them access to all the materials they may need from a particular publisher for a semester or a year.
Some students use financial aid to cover the cost of textbooks, while other students pay out of pocket — and college textbooks are not known for their affordability. The College Board found the average cost of books and supplies at a private college was $1,240 during the 2019-2020 school year.
The National Association of College Stores reports that students spent an average of US$415 each on required course materials during the 2018-2019 school year. The College Board says students should budget $1,240 annually for books and supplies.
The average student spending on course material in the United States came to 413 U.S. dollars in the 2019/20 academic year, down from 415 dollars a year earlier. Course material spending has been declining for years, and has dropped by over 200 U.S. dollars since the 2014/15 academic year.
Course Material Average Spending At 4-year public institutions, college students pay roughly $1,334 yearly on books and supplies. For private, nonprofit institutions, students pay about $1,308. For private for-profit institutions, students pay about $1,194 for books and supplies.
The overall average number of textbooks from grade levels K-12 is 19.90 books per student for each semester.
And when you know how much you'll need to spend on these expenses, it makes it easier to create a college budget.Tuition and Fees. Tuition and fees are the price you pay for taking classes at your college. ... Room and Board. ... Books and Supplies. ... Personal Expenses. ... Transportation.
Better completion rate. According to some professors, free college textbooks and course materials result in better outcomes. Higher completion rates and better grades for students are results of free college textbooks. Use that money for living costs.
The college bookstore survey found that as of 2019, about half of students prefer either a print textbook or one that combines a physical book with supplemental online support.
Publisher Profits Not surprisingly, the primary motivation behind the rise in price is directly related to the desire for more money. Publishers take in a significant percentage of the profits from textbook sales, so a higher sticker price means a better bottom line for them.
1. Moderate spending can cost students more than $2,000 a month. Students who choose to spend moderately will incur on average expenses of around $2,082 per month. This translates to about $24,980 a year.
According to the National Retail Federation, college students and their families plan on spending an average of $1,200 on dorm supplies and electronics in 2021.
Our researchers found that the average cost of college for the 2017–2018 school year was $20,770 for public schools (in-state) and $46,950 for nonprofit private schools, only including tuition, fees, and room and board.
The shortest answer is that US college students spend an average of $600 per year on textbooks despite rising retail prices.
According to the National Association of College Stores (NACS), the average college student’s expenditures on required course materials dropped from $701 in the 2007/08 school year to $638 in the 2013/14 school year.
The College Board does, however, point people to one source that they use as a rough basis for their budgets. According to the National Association of College Stores, the average price of a new textbook increased from $62 (in 2011 dollars) in 2006-07 to $68 in 2011-12.
NACS, as its name implies, surveys college bookstores to determine what students spend on various items. The College Board uses them as a source. This is the most concise summary, also showing rising textbook prices on a raw, non inflation-adjusted basis, although a lower rate of increase than the CPI.
The two primary public sources for how much students spend on textbooks are the National Association of College Stores (NACS) and The Student Monitor.
According to the General Accountability Office (GAO) , from 2002 – 2012 college tuition and fees rose 89% and average new college textbook prices rose 82% while overall consumer prices rose only 28%.
Student Monitor is a company that provides syndicated and custom market research, and they produce extensive research on college expenses in the spring and fall of each year . This group interviews students for their data, rather than analyzing college bookstore financials, which is a different methodology than NACS. Based on the Fall 2014 data specifically on textbooks, students spent an average of $320 per term, which is quite close to the $638 per year calculated by NACS. Based on information from page 126:
High textbook costs have negative effects on students. Many students report not purchasing required texts, taking fewer courses or even earning a poor grade as a result of not having a required text. For instance, a 2018 survey of students at public colleges and universities in Florida found that the high cost of textbooks had led 64.2% ...
The College Board says students should budget $1,240 annually for books and supplies.
The use of OER has saved students around the world over a billion dollars, and the vast majority of those savings have been reaped by students in the United States and Canada. Research has shown that students using OER do as well as or better than students using traditional course materials, with even better results for less financially secure students.
Several factors make course materials so expensive. First, there’s not much competition in the textbook industry. Just five publishers control about 80% of the textbook market, and two of those announced plans in May 2019 to merge by early 2020. Second, students have little choice in the materials they purchase since content is usually assigned by professors.
The quality of OER can vary, but many are written by experts and have faculty reviews available to assist instructors in selecting materials that suit their needs.
Colleges and universities have been active in promoting and developing affordable textbooks, including Open Educational Resources, more commonly known as OER. Open Educational Resources are educational materials – often in digital form – offered freely and openly for anyone to use.
A student might also consider a digital or physical rental if the student doesn’t plan to use the material after the course ends. If the college or university offers access to textbooks through the library, that’s a great place to save money. Most students who skip purchasing their course materials fear their grade will be negatively affected, so it’s essential that these cost-saving opportunities, alongside the option of open textbooks, are available to students.
That has caused 65 percent of students to skip buying required texts at some point in their college career because of a lack of affordability.
Legislation has even attempted to address the problem. The 2008 Higher Education Act reauthorization required that publishers disclose textbook pricing to professors and demanded that publishers offer all components of a course bundle for sale individually, with a few exceptions for "integrated products."
Nearly four in 10 college courses bundled their texts with access codes, which give students access to workbooks and tests in addition to the textbook, according to a study released Thursday by USPIRG. These access codes were particularly prevalent in introductory classes that were part of the general education requirements for all students.
Greenfield Community College in Massachusetts, for example, uses open-access texts in three of six required general education courses. That allowed students to spend as little as $31 per course on materials, compared to a national average of $153 per course, according to the study.
Notably, a movement is growing to provide copyright-free open-access text books. But these programs have been adopted at only 6 percent of schools. Open-access course materials are peer-reviewed, easily customizable and can include textbooks, articles and even sample problems and quizzes -- just like the materials publishers often hide behind paywalls.
Revenue made from students who pay the full cost can be used to provide scholarships and aid to other qualifying students.
Schools have blurred the true cost of college by advertising prices that scare consumers and then discounting the price dramatically with a financial aid package that makes it feel like too good a deal to pass up .
The first and most intuitive reason: college is worth whatever you’re willing to pay. While many students can’t afford the full sticker price or don’t want to spend that much on higher education, other students and their families are completely willing and able to pay full price. From an institution’s standpoint, it would be imprudent to accept less when a student would pay more.
For example, the advertised cost for attending Harvard in 2017-2018 is $73,600, which would bring sticker shock to most families. The “actual cost” for students who receive financial aid averages out to something closer to $12,000.
Tuition and fees. Tuition is the money paid for instruction while you’re in college. Fees are an add-on cost that helps the college pay for things like workout facilities, campus transportation, intramural or intercollegiate sports; a medical clinic on campus; student government; library books, a student center etc.
The bridge between the “advertised cost” and the “actual cost” is a financial aid package funded from the school’s $35 billion endowment fund. That financial aid package is loaded with scholarships and grants – known as “free money” because you don’t have to pay it back.
The federal government upped its grant awards from $20.6 billion in 2006, to $41.7 billion in 2016. Colleges added another $43 billion in grants in 2016, giving student a pool of nearly $85 billion in “free money” to help lower the true cost of going to college. So, don’t be discouraged by the numbers you see on a college’s website.
Campus stores buy books directly from the publisher or from a wholesaler. Then the campus store increases the selling price usually between 25 and 28 percent. For every dollar spent on a textbook, the campus store gets 22 cents.3Of the 22 cents, 18 cents goes to operating the store, which includes paying utilities and taxes. That 18 cents also needs to cover the payroll for the employees who help students find what they need and explain their course material program options. The remaining money — about four- and-a-half cents of every dollar spent on a textbook — is the campus store’s profit.
To keep their edge, publishers introduce new versions every two to three years, even if the content hasn’t changed much.
Campus stores provide students with several money-saving options to acquire the textbooks they need. Students can decide which factors are most important to them — such as ease (carrying a book vs. downloading a digital option), convenience (keeping the book vs. returning it or reselling it at the end of the term), types of books (new vs. used and possibly marked up) and overall savings.
They can work with their campus store to ensure that they are selecting titles with used and rental options to provide less expensive choices compared to the cost of new books. Professors can also take the simple but powerful action of making their course material selections on time. This simple step provides students with the widest variety of used and new books. And because the store knows which materials will be used again for the next term, students can usually expect a higher buyback price when it comes time to sell. The campus store also plays an important role in helping students save money on materials by offering a variety of purchasing options. With a well-rounded program, students can decide if they want to:
When professors make their course selections on time, the campus store can plan the appropriate inventory of new and used books — and students can usually expect a higher buyback price when it comes time to sell.
A publisher’s wholesale price (what they charge the campus store) includes author royalties, editing, proofreading, design, printing, shipping, marketing costs and profit. Added up, this equals 78 cents of every dollar spent on a textbook.
Typically, in order to increase the demand for new books over used books, publishers’ sales teams present new material to the primary adoption decision makers — professors, not campus stores or students. Faculty members choose their materials based on content, quality and adaptability to the course. And while most faculty members care about the students’ costs of those materials, professors cannot always put that factor ahead of content. Additionally, students may be reluctant to substitute similar materials that cost less because the students are unsure if there are differences in content, so they have limited purchasing options. And since retailers do not select the titles either, they cannot help keep the costs down by negotiating with the publishers.
The data, which is out from independent research firm Student Monitor and was announced in a release from the Association of American Publishers (AAP), shows the average student paid $205 for fall 2019 materials, compared to an average of $265 for the fall 2018 semester.
New data shows that students have spent an average of 23% less on college textbooks and other course materials for the fall semester of 2019 than they did at the same time last year.
This is no doubt due at least in part to the sky-high costs of university textbooks: Their prices have risen more than 1500% since 1970, a rate three times at of inflation.
The Student Monitor report was compiled from in-person, on-campus interviews with full-time undergraduates currently attending 93 universities and colleges.