2 Textbook Challenges & Student Impacts
Learning Objectives
- Understand textbook challenges & the impact on students
Textbook prices are continuing to rise astronomically, and more students are skipping the purchase of required textbooks due to soaring costs. Choosing a textbook for your student can impact both their personal and academic lives.
Student Perspectives on Textbooks
It’s important to listen to students. Your textbook decision can greatly impact students already on tight budgets. In some cases it may mean your students need to take out more loans, borrow money, look for other jobs, or consider moving.
Textbook Market
The average cost of textbooks has risen faster than the rate of inflation, increasing faster than the consumer price index for tuition, healthcare, or housing. Students are skipping the purchase of required textbooks due to affordability (NBC News, 2015).
Activity
Response to student video on Padlet: Have you had UTSA students express struggles with the cost of textbooks to you? What do you think would be a good strategy for an instructor that has a student that has difficulty overcoming these financial hurdles? What are some strategies that you employ as an instructor to help students get access to course readings without breaking the bank?
Additional Resources
Florida Virtual Campus. (2018). Student textbook and course materials survey: results and findings.
NBC News. (2015). “College textbook prices have risen 1,041 percent since 1977.”Student PIRGs. (2021). “Fixing the broken textbook market.” Student Public Interest Research Groups.
