Tell Students Why Their Textbook Has Value

Perhaps we don't do a good job of promoting the value of textbooks. Some students seem willing pay a hefty price to purchase term papers and Cliff notes, but turn around and complain about the price of a textbook. Other students have to make sacrifices in their life style to afford textbooks. To either group of students, we should be able to explain why textbooks are a good investment.

Yes, students could use the Internet to find free information equivalent to what is in a textbook, but they would spend many many hours hunting for it. Once found, they would spend even more time verifying that the information is presented by a reliable source and that it is up to date. 

Students might spend even more time sorting through the free information to determine what is relevant and what is not. Of course, this process of searching can become a learning experience, but considering that a student's time might be worth minimum wage, then 15 hours or so dredging up material (hardly enough time spent to find all the material they would need for a course) would pay for the cost of the textbook.

Textbooks also save time because they are, in effect, a contract between students and instructors, representing the scope of material that students are expected to master. Using a textbook helps students focus on the course objectives, rather than expending time and effort on material that is not the focus of the course.

Looked at his way, a $100 textbook is a bargain, but there are additional cost benefits. Students would rarely find any assessment opportunities with the free material they find, certainly nothing like the end-of-chapter activities provided by most textbooks. So an important value that is added to textbooks is this assessment, which helps students pass the course and can also serve to improve their grades; both important for successful job hunting.

Looked at an even different way, the cost of textbooks can be as high as 1/4 of tuition costs, but organizations such as College Parent Central recommend that students spend 2-3 hours studying for every hour of class time. Even if the ratio of textbook time to class time is 1:1, textbooks provide good value; their cost per hour of use is much less than the cost of class time.

I realize that there are additional factors related to textbook pricing; it is an issue with many facets and maybe there has been a rush to judgement with an emphasis on costs and a disregard for benefits. I hope that we can balance the discussion with more advocacy and understanding about the value of textbooks, not just for providing instructional material, but for making the learning process more efficient and cost effective.