In 2020, students spend $1,200 per year on books and supplies.
Since 1978, the cost of college textbooks has increased 812%: This is almost six times the rate of inflation.
A textbook that cost $25.00 in 1978 would cost $203.00 today.
Sources: The Real Cost of Textbooks, Historical Consumer Price Index, US News & World Report. Image source: Sergey Demushkin, RU, The Noun Project. Creative Commons.
Open textbooks...
A 2020 US PIRG report found that undergraduate students will pay upwards of $1,200 a year for textbooks and supplies.
Textbook cost impacts both student success and retention.
Students who participated answered that the cost of required textbooks caused them to:
| 66% | Not purchase the required textbook. |
| 90% | Students who say that not purchasing the textbook will impact their grade. |
| 17% | Skipped buying the access code. |
| 7% | Drop a course because they cannot afford the textbook. |
| 3% | Fail a course because they could not afford the textbook. |
The high cost of textbooks presents a barrier to student success.
In the 2020 US PIRG report, 66% of undergraduate students skipped buying a required textbook because the cost was too high. More than 90% of these students did so even though they believed it could hurt them academically.
A meta-analysis of "the efficacy of open textbooks compared with commercial textbooks on learning performance and withdrawal rate. Based on the findings of 22 independent studies, there appeared to be no effect on learning performance in courses with open textbooks compared with courses with commercial textbooks."
The same study found that "the withdrawal rate from courses with open textbooks, based on 11 independent studies, was reliably lower than that for courses with commercial textbooks." (Source: Efficacy of Open Textbook Adoption on Learning Performance and Course Withdrawal Rates: A Meta-Analysis)