College Textbook Pricing is Up 1,041% Since 1977

By Dianna Dilworth 

Textbook prices are up 1,041 percent since January 1977, according to new numbers released by NBC News.

The media outlet looked at Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data and determined that these prices have gone up three times the rate of inflation. A spokesperson for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, claims that students are ‘captive consumers.’ While this number sounds staggering, not everyone in the industry agrees with the math. NBC News has more:

Marisa Bluestone, spokeswoman for the the Association of American Publishers, called the BLS data “misleading” because of the “law of small numbers” where a small item that increases from $100 to $200 will appear as a 100 percent increase whereas if tuition increases from $10,000 to $11,000 it’s only a 10 percent increase.