I know I am. Looks like I'm not the only one, either. What can we do about scams like this?
Quote:
A national student activist organization stepped up its criticism of college textbook publishers Tuesday, asserting that the industry imposed exorbitant wholesale price increases totaling 62% over the last decade on top-selling books. That amounts to more than double the nation's overall rise in consumer prices during the same period.
"Textbook prices are skyrocketing, and publishers continue to use gimmicks to inflate the price, making higher education less affordable," said Merriah Fairchild, a Sacramento-based higher education advocate. She worked with the national State Public Interest Research Groups organization in preparing a new report on textbook pricing released Tuesday.
The activist organization also complained that the textbook publishing industry charged U.S. students more than foreign students for the same texts. It found that the average textbook cost 17% more in the United States than it did in Britain. In all, it estimated that the average U.S. college student spent about $900 a year on textbooks, although industry officials put the figure at $625.
The college textbook industry called much of the report badly flawed, saying the findings were based on a small sampling of popular but costly textbooks that exaggerated the overall rise in prices to students. Industry officials also maintained that the price of textbooks had risen more slowly than college tuition and fees.
They also sought to shift some blame for costs onto college instructors and their faculty committees, saying that they were free to order less expensive texts for their students. Professors "are in control of that choice," said Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education with the Assn. of American Publishers.
But Hildebrand also said that the student organization's estimated 17% gap in prices of texts sold in the U.S. compared with those in Britain "seems reasonable."
The United States "is the richest market in the world. You sell into what the market will handle. It's like Coca-Cola sold for less overseas," he said.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...icescriticized