Research conducted by Student PIRGs (public interest research groups) found that since 2006, the price of college textbooks has increased by 73%, or four times the price inflation rate. College textbooks are typically chosen by the professor or class instructor, and the price of the book is rarely taken into consideration. Furthermore, there is very little price competition in the textbook market, with five publishers producing 80% of textbooks. The shelf life and earning potential of textbooks are very limited due to the secondary market selling used books after the first edition is released. The lack of competition and pricing choices, coupled with the short earning potential of newly published textbooks, results in high college textbook prices. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Students, who are the consumers of these textbooks, have no input on which textbooks they should purchase. If the professor assigns a particular textbook from a specific publisher and author, the student cannot simply say that he will buy this other book from another publisher instead because it is a cheaper book. Just five publishers control 80% of the textbook market, resulting in very little competition and little incentive to keep prices low. The free market is absent when it comes to purchasing textbooks for a college course. In fairness to publishers and authors, writing and publishing a college textbook takes a tremendous amount of work. Textbooks are, by definition, very dense sources of academic material that require painstaking effort to write, edit, and produce. Surely, the effort to produce these textbooks should be financially rewarded. While books are first sold in the first half of the year, they are sold at full price, but then the secondary market comes into play. Publishers now have difficulty making money on a textbook in the second year of publication because students resell and flood the market with the first edition of the book. Publishers know this and to compensate it becomes necessary to increase the price for the first series of sales. This is why new textbooks can cost up to $400 per book. What happens when textbooks become inaccessible? Students will go to the secondary market and purchase used books for a fraction of the price of a new book and some may even pirate a copy of the book from the Internet. Publishers are completely eliminated from the market and, as a result, continue to raise the prices of new textbooks to compensate. A publisher periodically releases a new version of a textbook, and the cycle of life begins again. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay College textbooks are expensive, and everyone involved feels like they are getting the short end of the stick. Students have to sell an arm and a leg to afford new textbooks, and publishers have to set high prices for textbooks because of the short time the textbook will sell before flooding the secondary market. Unless textbook publishers can find a way to make new book purchases every year irresistible, the same problems that cause high textbook prices will continue to persist.