Feb. 2

No Longer Free to Choose

The principle of freedom of choice is one of the most critical rights in American society. The Constitution guarantees us the right to choose our own religion. Representative democracy provides us the freedom to choose our elected leaders. In the marketplace we have the freedom to choose from a variety of goods and services.

The ability of individuals to make personal choices is of such importance to the functioning of our economic system that the late, great economist, Milton Friedman, entitled his widely read book Free To Choose. In it Freidman powerfully demonstrated that we, in the West, have the high standard of living we do, in great part due to freedom of choice. This same ability to choose — to pick a campus, major and instructors that best meet our personal needs and aspirations — has in large part, enabled our higher education system to become the best in the world.

Today in academe the core freedom for faculty to choose is under attack. It has long been argued that faculty members should have the ability to construct their own courses within a general framework so long as that course covered certain topics, and was done so with the proper amount of intellectual rigor. These standards were needed to ensure a certain level of conformity across sections, but they also allowed instructors to tailor courses to both their own teaching styles and abilities and the learning styles and capabilities of their students. When instructors have the freedom to tailor their courses, students will learn better and retain the material much longer.

This long tradition of choice is now besieged on campuses across the country by both “committees” and student activists. “Committees” are mandating the textbooks, instructional materials and learning aids instructors must use in their classes. In some cases faculty members are being forced to adopt older, perhaps even outdated, versions of textbooks in an attempt to “save students money” by making it possible for students to purchase used textbooks instead of new editions. Some students are demanding that they, not the faculty, determine what and how instructional materials will be used in the classroom. Some professors are taking the risky and misguided step of aligning with the two.

Upon examination, their argument falls on its face.

To begin with, if every student were to buy only used textbooks then no new textbooks would be sold. Thus, no new textbooks would be produced, rapidly diminishing the quality of education.

Second, one must consider why the market prices for new textbooks are increasing. Surprisingly, one of the major causes of higher priced new textbooks is the used textbook market. For example, if the fixed cost of producing a textbook is $500,000 and 5,000 units of the book are sold each year for 4 years then each textbook would bear $25 of the fixed cost.

However, if, due to the used textbook market, only the first 5,000 units are sold and, in each of the remaining three years these same 5,000 units are sold as used textbooks, then the publisher still has the $500,000 in fixed costs spread out over only 5,000 books. Thus each new textbook bears $100 of fixed costs, resulting in higher retail prices for all textbooks. This example demonstrates what has been happening in the textbook market over the past several years: As the used textbook market has expanded so have the market prices of new and used textbooks.

Consider how over the last several years the behavior of many faculty members and colleges has contributed to the fixed costs of publishers. On the positive side, faculty members are requiring more publisher produced instructional tools and technologies — such as homework exercises, tutorials and supplemental learning materials — to enhance their ability to educate their students. On the negative side, instructors and colleges are demanding more “freebies” from publishers, such as PowerPoint slides, computerized test banks, videos and class management programs. All of these items force up the price of textbooks.

There are no “freebies.” All of these things require expenditures that must be paid by someone. Most often these costs are passed on to the student in the form of higher prices at the bookstore.

Out with the new and in with the old is not a formula for success. New editions of textbooks carry with them new and improved knowledge and information. As time goes on, authors and publishers find better examples to illuminate and explain information and ways to integrate them with the latest technologies.

If the textbook “committees” and activists are really concerned about prices they will address the causes of the problem instead of limiting academic freedom. Used textbooks are not a cure-all and should not be treated as such. Faculty can be more timely and discerning with their adoptions, choosing only what they need and will use in their classrooms, and they should look more closely at the lower cost options being offered by publishers, like paperback and streamlined books and custom editions. Steps should also be taken to ban faculty members from selling sample or examination copies of textbooks they are given by publishers. The sale of samples, by faculty members or bookstores, is ethically wrong and contributes to the escalation of textbook prices.

The skill and commitment of faculty are the chief contributors to students’ educational success, I am happy to report. A parallel axiom is that textbooks and course materials are the second most important tools in the educational arsenal. If both maxims are true, then it only seems logical that faculty defend their right to choose the tools they will employ and that the debate shift back to quality of education and student success and away from requiring dated materials that drive up costs.

Michael W. Brandl is a senior lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written an ancillary work to a textbook, Glenn Hubbard’s Money, the Financial System and the Economy, published by Addison-Wesley and is assisting Hubbard in the revision of that text.

Comments

Free to choose

Yes, faculty could choose one of those multi-colored, DVD-equipped textbooks costing $125/each. With some material that has been around since Calvin Coolidge.

Or, for those who concerned about the rising debt load of students, they could try the emerging open-source textbook movement.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=e...k+open-source&btnG=Google+Search

Free to choose.

C. Bigsby, at 8:00 am EST on February 2, 2007

Textbooks should be FREE

I won’t waste time on Mr. Brandl’s argument or his invocation of the unlamented Milton Friedman, whose screeds are thin ideological justifications for exploitation, nothing more.

I do want to address the textbook issue. It is a complete scam, a forced transfer of resources from students, most of whom are needy, to well-paid authors and obscenely rich publishers.

Textbooks can and should be free. They can be distributed in digital form through the Internet, updated whenever the authors think necessary.

Digital — e.g., PDF — technology permits whatever level of security the authors deem essential (e.g. permission to download, but only to print certain parts, not to make changes at all — whatever).

Much faculty research is otiose, undertaken only because required by college administrators for retention, tenure, and promotion.

College administrations should permit — indeed, encourage — faculty members to substitute textbook writing for research.

Such textbooks could be vetted — previewed, reviewed, and so on — purely with an eye to their value, without concern for whether, if published, they would earn a “profit.”

For many faculty, writing textbooks would be one of the essential components of their professional activity.

Apologists for exploitation may argue that no decent textbooks will be produced without the “incentive” of “hopes of profit.”

This is nonsense, of course. The whole argument to “incentives” is ideology, pure and simple. Besides, the “incentive” of retention, tenure and promotion remains in any case.

Who will be harmed? A few authors whose textbooks make some money. Publishers who make even more.

So what? The makers of buggy whips also needed to earn a living. Technological advances rendered their services obsolete. Technological advances have now done the same for the textbook “industry.”

Who will gain? Students — hugely, and financially. Those faculty who prefer to creatively synthesize research done by others rather than be forced into the one-size-fits-all research mold.

Grover Furr, at 8:35 am EST on February 2, 2007

The author writes: “On the negative side, instructors and colleges are demanding more “freebies” from publishers, such as PowerPoint slides, computerized test banks, videos and class management programs.”

In the last dozen courses I’ve prepared, I’ve seen no demand for these materials, merely publisher supply that comes bundled with books. There’s no way for me to say “This is a decent book, I’ll pay you for it, but I don’t need the other junk you’ve produced, and don’t want to support your production of it.” To an author from a business school, doesn’t that scream out “bad market"?

In my discipline (Computer Science), I have seen exactly one set of PowerPoints that were worth using — as a starting point for a good class, not on their own — and not a single test bank that contained appropriate questions. But the publishers that insist on churning out new editions every two years with no significant new material also insist on creating these things and passing on the cost.

Publishers insist they need to raise prices in order to make a profit. Instead they might be a little more selective — there is an incredible oversupply of bad textbooks for many of the stock courses in my field. If they’re worried about the the waste from sample copies, well, I appreciate the copies that I get that are relevant to the courses I teach, but when moving offices recently I threw scores of pounds of books into the recycling bin: books that might be useful for some sections at a trade school, but bore no resemblance to any of the subjects covered at our university.

T. Hudson, Assistant Professor at UNC Wilmington, at 9:16 am EST on February 2, 2007

Faculty are free to choose!

I have recently completed research on this topic and I disagree with your conclusions.

Both the American Publisher’s Association and The National Association of College Stores used the same average price for a new textbook as $52.A used textbook was given by NACS as costing $40.01. ( These were 2004 figures, the lastest available.)

I challenge any parent to go to the bookstore and find a new textbook for the $52.00 from the core curricula with the exception of PE and potentially religion.

At my bookstore, the average new bookstore price for the top ten enrolled courses, 8 in the Core Curricula and 2 Dmat’s was $104.00. Bundling may explain some of the difference in price.However,a $52 profit?

This tells me that faculty are having difficulty deciding between books and bundles because they do not have enough financial information on each piece in the bundle. My used government Book, Democracy Under Pressure was $88 with an internet access code which my professor does not use.

To me, it is egregious that faculty do not have a written or online pricelist with ISBN numbers for each individual textbook and supplementals so that apples and apples can be compared between publishers.

As I see it, the pricing policy works like this. The publisher sets the retail price. The colleges who have contract management bookstores. Whatever the retail price is, the buyback is 50% or less if an edition is changing or the school has more books than projected course members in the Spring. The bookstore than typically marks up the used book 25%-33% to resell it to a student. So the used book price remains high. This effectively precludes individual choice with the publisher determing both the new and used price.

An example was the Accounting I textbook. The hardback copy cost $164.00. The faculty, trying to be cost sensitive, ordered the three whole punched paper with black and white text. Due to the formula, the textbook was approximately $94.00. Accounting 1 is not a course that changes very much as far as information and problems go. It is not cloth or hardbound. Would this edition be this expensive if the publisher didn’t have a very unrealisticly priced hardbook?

Online technology exists and is used by parents of homeschoolers in K-12 who do get ISBN numbers for all the combinations, including printing variations for the textbook.How difficult would it be for the publisher to do the same thing for college textbooks?

Oral pricing is what exists now.Representatives can raise or lower elements within a certain range. However, imagine the surprise to the faculty member and the sticker shock to the student when the publisher representative’s quoted price changes with the first reorder from the bookstore.

Publisher have not been listening to their clients. An example of this is the 200 math faculty across the country who stood up to the publisher so they could keep in print a great calculus book. The publisher changed the version anyway.

In most industries, if a client is willing to guarentee 5,000 copies for a three year period the vender would be listening carefully. Volume discounting is not a practice used by college academic publishers.

Rep. Hotchberg filed HB 956 in the 80th Legislature in Texas. This bill addresses the need for students to have access to ISBN so they can compare costs. Faculty have been asked to include price in their deliberations.

I am very happy with his definitions on the issue of bundling.This will signicantly reduce the price of textbooks as well as promoting collegial discussions on what textbooks and if supplementals are needed by faculty.

I do have concerns regarding pricing information that a college would have to provide to offsite bookstores.

There needs to be a caveat that the prices,titles, versions, and ISBN numbers are valid at the time of posting but can change because the publisher can send a different/new edition,faculty could change the book during the summer, and human error can occur.

I believe that students are smart enough to understand that is better to buy at the bookstore with a fantastic return policy in case the ISBN number did change.

456.BUNDLES. (a) A university-affiliated bookstore shall not sell instructional materials as a bundle unless:(1) all items in the bundle are required by a faculty member; or(2) the bundle price is lower than the total price of all of the required materials sold separately.(b) A faculty member shall not require a bundle unless:(1) all materials in the bundle are intended to be used in the course; or(2) the bundle price is lower than the total price of the materials intended to be used in the course sold separately.© A university-affiliated bookstore that allows students to return textbooks shall not penalize a student for opening a required bundle or opening materials within the bundle as long as all other conditions of the return policy are met.

I believe that textbooks are necessary for students to learn. It just isn’t right that NACS found that 65% of 16,000 students in the fall of 2005 did not buy all the required books for a course.

What is new is that an agency within state government shall attempt to negotiate with higher education publishers.

Last, how does the faculty get a handle on the high price of textbooks if the old edition is discontinued,and the new edition is coming out every 18 months to two years. The student can’t recoup the investment in their textbook leaving them short to buy their next classes’ textbooks.

Lauri Wiss, Ms. at Brookhaven Community College, at 9:16 am EST on February 2, 2007

Please don’t make broad statements like “faculty demand” all these textbook supplements. Some of us do not. I find things like test banks, PPT slides, etc., often so poorly done and at such a low level of learning that I would be embarrassed to use them. And I send them back to the company — I don’t even keep them.

Kathleen Lowney, Professor at VSU, at 9:21 am EST on February 2, 2007

Ol’ Joe wanted ..

” .. College administrations should permit — indeed, encourage — faculty members to substitute textbook writing for research ..”

The aforementioned redundant work-output to “re-directed” to Siberia for more useful purposes.

The “man of steel” might have had a point.

Free to choose — open-source textbooks rule!

C. Bigsby, at 9:50 am EST on February 2, 2007

Brandl has completely lost touch with reality.

math prof, at 9:51 am EST on February 2, 2007

What an odd article! First, it is almost axiomatic that when the person who chooses the product is not the one who purchases the product, the product will be more expensive than it should be. In this case, the publishers and the professors win at a cost to the student. The professors get lots of “free” stuff — whether or not they want it — the publishers generate healthy profits, and the student is required to purchase the book. Second, it is bizarre that freedom of choice as a constitutional right is invoked to support the ability of a professor to choose his own textbook. Freedom of choice — to the extent that it is a right — is a consumer right, not an emoployee right. What would happen in every other industry if their employees could choose the way that they performed their jobs? If freedom of choice for professors is a better and/or more efficient educational model, then it stands to reason that students will go to those schools that allow it. Let the market (therefore the students) decide whether the educational value created by freedom of professorial choice is better than the efficiency generated by standardizing textbook purchases.

An observer, at 11:35 am EST on February 2, 2007

Poor argument

I am sorry, the case made here is very weak indeed.

Consider the claim “...if the fixed cost of producing a textbook is $500,000,...". Is there any evidence that a text really costs this much? Where did this figure come from? A large number like this sounds kind of scary, but it also sounds highly implausible. Not only that, even if this is the fixed cost for an entirely new text, new editions are likely to cost considerably less. Thus, the mathematics of the argument here, while superficially impressive, do not quite add up. This is not the only defect though.

The author also claims that “As time goes on, authors and publishers find better examples to illuminate and explain information and ways to integrate them with the latest technologies.” This claim has a certain ring of plausibility about it, but is not supported by the evidence. Successive editions of texts frequently recycle the very same examples. Although exercises may be renumnbered, most of them remain the same. Also, how much really changes in three years in most academic fields? My guess is not too much. So, why do new editions come out on a regular three year cycle from many textbook publishers?

The utter perversity of the reasoning here can also be seen at the more formal level. The author offers us the following argument:

“if every student were to buy only used textbooks then no new textbooks would be sold. Thus, no new textbooks would be produced, rapidly diminishing the quality of education.”

This appears to be an attempt at a Modus Ponens inference, albeit with the second premise missing. If the author wishes us to be persuaded by the argument for the conclusion that ‘no new textbooks would be produced’, then we need to add the missing second premise ‘every student [will] buy only used textbooks’. This is very far from a plausible claim (to put it mildly). To make matters worse, the author wishes us to accept the conjunctive conclusion that ‘no new textbooks would be produced, rapidly diminishing the quality of education’. Although a (bad) argument has been offered to support the claim that ‘no new textbooks would be produced’, no argument is offered for the further claim that this would cause a ‘rapidly diminishing the quality of education’. For this additional conclusion to follow (by a Hypothetical Syllogism inference), another premise needs to be added, namely ‘If no new textbooks were produced, then this would cause a rapidly diminishing quality of education’. This premise too is of dubious merit. In subjects such as the history of philosophy for instance, older texts would be fine, until they became unusable, due to wear and tear. Locke’s *Essay* has not changed too much, since it was published, for example.

Thus, academics should not be mislead by the empty rhetoric offered here. The textbook companies seem to have found themselves a willing applogist. This does not mean that we should be tempted to concur, or endorse their textbook practices, which are motivated by the bottom line, not educational values.

The CP

The Combat Philosopher, at 11:50 am EST on February 2, 2007

You have a choice

Brandl’s early comment is the most important one: you, the professor, have a choice. There are plenty of presses, large and small, who create inexpensive textbooks for use in almost any course. These books won’t make me an “obscenely rich” publisher, but they are solid pedagogically and affordable to students. It’s up to the profs to care enough about their students to choose those rather than the steroidal ones with all the bells and whistles.

Mitrch Allen, Publisher at Left Coast Press, Inc., at 1:00 pm EST on February 2, 2007

Please investigate!

” .. I find things like test banks, PPT slides, etc., often so poorly done ..”

ABSOLUTELY! I recently reviewed the top-sellers in one field. My God, the quality of the “contributions” from the contributing authors (and authors) was terrible!

As in: one-sided viewpoints, missed facts (in the TRILLIONS), knowledge level at least one year below scale.

So how did these textbooks, sell so well?

Well — ask someone (e.g., low-tier college) to “contribute” a research note — the book gets one more recommedation for purchase. A pretty good scheme.

There’s probably a Pulitzer for someone who wants to investigate.

B.D., at 2:55 pm EST on February 2, 2007

Whither books?

Why do students sell so many of their textbooks? Sometimes I ask a calculus student who has forgotten some of the background material to review a precalculus topic only to have them tell me they sold their precalculus book. The same thing happens when I ask Diff Eq students brush up on some calculus topics.

Even in courses outside one’s discipline, why not keep books as they should have lasting value? You can reread interesting sections in your psychology or history textbooks. Why not reread a short story you read in freshman English?

If I offered you half your tuition back if you agreed to let me erase what you learned last semester, would you agree? Are we faculty failing to convince students there is life long value to the books we have them read, or are we admitting students to universities who would be better served in job training programs?

In high school I found a box with filled my parents old college textbooks. I read them with relish – even “out dated” material, like old maps, can be very interesting! I’ll do my part to keep costs low (I have gotten the local bookstores to stop pushing unneeded supplements), but there are deeper issues afoot.

Math Prof, at 6:15 pm EST on February 2, 2007

Seems like most of these posts are from people that don’t know what they are talking about! Professor Brandl makes one, primary point; that professors should make “choices” pertaining to learning materials. That they are paid and entrusted to do so....so let them do their job! Do any of you nay sayers realize how many “choices” there are? There are millions of titles to choose from. Some that are very low cost...some that are “free” on the open web....many that have no supplements.....many that have low cost e-versions. If those of us in publishing want to succeed, we must satisfy you professors in terms of content, pedagogy, and price. If we don’t, DO NOT CHOOSE our products. This choice is exactly what Brandl is advocating. Give him a break and make your choice count. While it is flattering to be called a robber baron, some of you need to look at the facts. The large majority of people working within the educational publishing industry are not particulary high paid and most of the companies are not yielding large profits from their textbook divisions. Check the facts.

Jim Harbor, at 6:30 pm EST on February 2, 2007

Perhaps the price of the textbooks should be included in course descriptions.

Another, at 5:21 am EST on February 3, 2007

Tried it

I TRIED teaching a course once without a book — using only library materials, web references, etc. I thought I was saving the students money. Many students complained — to me and to the dean. They WANT a physical book to take on the bus, to the coffee shop, on vacation for a week, and most importantly, to study from for the test.

Really tried it, at 11:06 am EST on February 3, 2007

Oh please.

You can’t use free-market ideology to complain about buyers voluntarily reducing their demand for a product. Not even if they do it in a cartel.

Paul Gowder, at 4:00 pm EST on February 3, 2007

Tried it? Depends ..

FWIW, I once had a graduate soc-sci class with Prof. I.M. Lost who assigned $200 of books and no particular goals/objectives.

Being poverty-stricken, I “Google’d” the main topics and put the laserprint-outs in a $0.99 Wal-Mart binder. (Had to supplement a few topics with friends.)

Got a 3.5/4.0 and saved $190. Not recommending it for everyone. But absent any real concern by anyone else, that decision is up to you.

C. Bigsby, at 4:35 pm EST on February 3, 2007

Book Publishers + RIAA + MPAA = bad for us

Simply put, Mr. Brandl’s piece shares the same F.U.D. tactics used by the RIAA and MPAA to explain away their outdated business models and over-priced, crappy “products". Poor book publishers! You’re just trying to help. Shame on us for thinking we can buy used textbooks or *gasp* choose alternatives that threaten their business.

An earlier post questions why students would sell back their textbooks (often for pennies on the dollar — hardly a good deal). Have you actually read their textbooks?

I’ve seen op-ed pieces written by seemingly credible people that ended up being supported by various industry associations trying to push an agenda under the auspices of “consumer choice” and “academic freedom". I earnestly hope that Mr. Brandl hasn’t sold himself to the book publishing industry, but the tenor of his piece suggests otherwise.

I think I’ll go watch *Thank You for Smoking* again...

Concerned Academic, at 11:55 am EST on February 4, 2007

Define credibility

” .. I’ve seen op-ed pieces written by seemingly credible people that ended up being supported by various industry associations ..”

Is that anything like The New York Times, blindly reporting on “objective studies” that conveniently happen to be written by uncited third-level former Clintonites?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/30/injuries

Just wondering.

Also — are Michael Moore and Albert Gore, Jr., documentarians? Or politicians with agendas and video cameras?

L.L., at 1:51 pm EST on February 4, 2007

One other aspect not mentioned

I agree faculty should have “choices” when it comes to textbooks. Yet, when these choices involve a student required to buy a $120 text that is used for half of less of the “required text” then do students have a right to complain? As a parent of a college student as well as working in higher education, I have seen far too much of such underutilization of expensive texts. This type of practice is not part of academic freedom. From a student standpoint, it appears to be an “instituionalized” extortion. Buy a book for $120, use it for only a few chapters,and then sell it back for half or much less. Wonder why the students are up in arms about text costs?

MLJ, at 4:05 pm EST on February 5, 2007

We are free to choose!

“To begin with, if every student were to buy only used textbooks then no new textbooks would be sold. Thus, no new textbooks would be produced, rapidly diminishing the quality of education.”. . . “Used textbooks are not a cure-all and should not be treated as such.”

I see what you did there! The above quotes create a straw man. This is not a black or white issue where either everyone is buying new textbooks or where everyone is buying used texts. There are some instances where a new text would be needed and some where a used text would work just as well.

“In some cases faculty members are being forced to adopt older, perhaps even outdated, versions of textbooks in an attempt to ’save students money’ by making it possible for students to purchase used textbooks instead of new editions.”

A used edition is not necessarily outdated. I would also like to know in *what* cases faculty are being forced to adopt these allegedly outdated versions, as well as *how* these versions are outdated. Honestly, I read the quotes around “save students money” and I began to question whether the author was being serious or trying for parody. If a student pays half of what a new edition would cost, in where the actual content of the text has not significantly changed, then they really are saving money. Yes, really. Using new graphics and shifting sentences around without changing the intellectual “meat” of the text does not count as a significant change, and accessorizing the text with CDs and such provides questionable value. If one wishes to see why textbook costs are rising, along with college costs in general, one should look to the very same ideology of profit espoused by Friedman.

“Today in academe the core freedom for faculty to choose is under attack.”

This statement is very much true, although not in the way the author intended it to be. If faculty wish to make available a cheaper, used edition of a text where there are changes of minor significance vis-a-vis the new edition, they should be free to do so. But this is not where the freedom to choose is under attack. Is not the freedom to choose cited here the same as what is called academic freedom? The likes of Horowitz proclaim that campuses are filled to overflowing with radicals, and that such people must be constrained. The freedom for faculty to form the very content and structure of their courses is under attack. Whether or not a student saves a buck or two (or two hundred) is a trifle compared to the larger issue at hand. I would also argue that the academe is threatened by the idea that all institutions must come under the purview of The Market and that the dischordant nature of the former is incompatible with the rigid system of the latter.But I digress. . .

Joseph C, at 5:10 am EST on February 6, 2007

Textbooks and the Quality of Education

I agree with the central idea of this article that educators should have the freedom to choose the materials for the classes they teach. However, as our society is changing into the “costumer society” where the freedom of choice is exercised by all of us, we (the educators) have to listen to our “costumers” (the students) because teaching is the service business. Collage instructors are part of educational institutions which are serving their clients using strategies which will benefit their business. One of them is the textbook distribution. That is why many colleges and universities expect professors to choose textbooks for their own particular section of a course, while other institutions embrace a universal adoption for all sections of the same course. Both methods of the textbook selection have their pluses and minuses but we (the instructors) have a free choice to work for the institution which will fit our preferences. Freedom of choice it is something that it is hard to argue about in our society. As Mr. Brandl stated in this article “the principle of freedom of choice is one of the most critical rights in American society” and we are all cherish the fact that we have it. The problem starts when “committees” or “students activists” try to act on the right to choose and they are choosing something what an individual does not like. If the educational institution listens to “committees” or “students activists’, then we call it a democratic process, the one our country identifies with. However, when the right of an individual is suppressed by the democratic process, then some people call it an attack on their freedom. I think that there must be a compromise between the individual and society views on the freedom of choice.There are many ways to lower the cost of the textbooks for students such as books on CDs or online books but the freedom of choice for the instructor is still under question. One way, however, has the potential to do both lower the cost of the textbooks for students and satisfy the freedom of choice for the instructor. It is the creation of a binder version of a course the instructor is going to teach. Some instructors are doing just that and list the additional textbooks as optional if the institution they are working for requires uses of the officially published textbooks. In the age of rapidly improving technology, college instructors might go even further and publish their materials online for students to print out what they need (some instructors are doing it already). In this case the quality of education will probably improve. The textbooks should be just reference to what is taught. The way how the instructor is teaching it is more important. The “rapidly diminishing quality of education” should not be affected by the amount of the new textbooks production. The quality of education is definitely affected by the college instructors commitment to teaching.

Bozena Suwary, EdD student at Argosy University in Schaumburg, at 4:25 am EST on February 12, 2007

While the excessive expense of books is certainly a problem when it comes to college classes, I feel that the bigger problem is in grading continuity between professors teaching the same classes. Teaching/grading “style” is ok for unique upper-level classes, but when one professor makes a “core” course (i.e., organic chemistry) twice as hard as another professor teaching the same class at the same school, it’s outrageous. Basic organic chemistry is basic organic chemistry; you learn pretty much the same material no matter where you take it. Why, then, should one professor be allowed to require twice as much effort to get a good grade as another professor in the same department? Professors, TAs, etc. should not be allowed to “grade as they please” in these classes. Instead, they should be forced to adhere to reasonable grading standards established by their departments. Otherwise, students simply get screwed — and I’m not paying tens of thousands of dollars to get screwed.

college student, at 3:30 pm EST on February 12, 2007

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