College Textbook Prices Are A Scam And Will Continue To Get Worse (Details Inside)

Having just graduated, I can attest that buying textbooks is a fucking painful and expensive process. Not only are you paying hundreds of dollars for useless books, but you’ll inevitably have to stare at those books for hours at some point during the semester.

Once the semester is over, they’ll merely become paperweights.

Unfortunately, prices for textbooks are rising exponentially. Professor Mark Perry of the Carpe Diem Blog has been following this problem closely, and had this to say:

“The 812% increase in the price of college textbooks since 1978 makes the run-up in house prices and housing bubble (and subsequent crash) in the 2000s seem rather inconsequential, and the nine-fold increase in textbook prices also dwarfs the increase in the cost of medical services over the last three decades. Compared to the 250% increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) over the last 34 years, college textbooks have risen more than three times the amount of the average increase for all goods and services.”

Basically, textbooks are expensive and are only getting way more expensive. It’s cheaper to just scramble around at the last minute and borrow the textbooks from some loser in your class. But hey, C’s get degrees, right?

Wentworth Jones | Elite.