Welcome back to campus! New year means new classes, which means new professors. New professors with a new course load and list of books that will be studied throughout the semester, meaning it’s time to take that credit card out one more time, but this time you’re not paying for housing, your meal plan, or tuition. According to the National Association of College Stores, “the average student spends $662 annually on course materials” (Why College Textbooks are so Expensive and How to Avoid Overpaying for Them). Spending this much money can be hard for many college students, which raises the question, is it ethical for professors to require their students to buy textbooks?
College textbooks have recently increased in pricing due to a lack of textbook publishers. Since there are so few, those that do publish can raise the price all they want because they understand that there is such a demand, since students are required to purchase them.
Another issue that contributes to the rising cost of textbooks is transition to digital textbooks. Online books require access codes, so students also have to pay for the development of those and access to all supplemental materials (The high cost of college textbooks, explained).
Across majors textbook prices even cost differently. For example, “Books for humanities courses like art history tend to cost less than those for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) courses like chemistry or calculus” (The high cost of college textbooks, explained). STEM textbooks possibly cost more due to the fact that there is a greater demand for new editions. Science is constantly changing in terms of practices and information, which means constantly editing textbooks to add new information. It is not fair for a portion of college students to be required to spend more money on textbooks than others just because of their majors they fell into.
In addition, many students receive financial aid, which does not always cover the entire price of textbook costs. Specifically at Bucknell University, 63 percent of students receive some form of financial aid. This means that the majority of students on campus might struggle to find the money to pay for their high priced textbooks.
One last reason professors should not require their students to buy textbooks is that many times textbooks might not be read throughout the semester. Sometimes professors only want to look at a specific chapter or two. Or things change, snow days affect time in class, or certain material can’t be covered because time won’t allow. This can cause professors to change their syllabi around, possibly cutting out specific texts that students already purchased.
https://www.bucknell.edu/admissions-aid/tuition-fees-financial-aid