e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Affordable College Textbook Act

  • Data To Back Up Concerns Of Textbook Expenditures By First-Generation Students

    David Wiley has added to the conversation ((My initial post, Mike Caulfield response, Bracken Mosbacker, my response to Mike, Mike follow-up)) over use of data on college textbook pricing and student spending patterns with “The Practical Cost of Textbooks”. The key argument is to go beyond prices and spending and look at the most direct measure of asking students themselves how textbooks costs have impacted them. He then looks at the Florida Virtual Campus surveys (also included in my post), concluding:

    What impact does the cost of textbooks have on students? Textbook costs cause students to occasionally or frequently take fewer courses (35% of students), to drop or withdraw from courses (24%), and to earn either poor or failing grades (26%). Regardless of whether you have historically preferred the College Board number or the student survey number, a third fact that is beyond dispute is that surveys of students indicate that the cost of textbooks negatively impacts their learning (grades) and negatively impacts their time to graduation (drops, withdraws, and credits).

    And yes, we need to do something about it.

    Amen. Surveying over 18,000 students, the FVC surveys are quite important and should be on everyone’s radar.

    More Out Of Data

    (more…)

  • Asking What Students Spend On Textbooks Is Very Important, But Insufficient

    Mike Caulfield responded to my post on data usage to understand college textbook expenditures. The core of my argument is a critique of commonly cited College Board data. That data originating from financial aid offices leads to the conclusion that students on average either spend or budget $1,200 per year with that number rising, while there is more reliable data originating from students showing the number to be half that amount and dropping.

    In Mike’s response post yesterday, he generally agreed with the observation but is concerned that “readers of that piece are likely to take away the wrong conclusion from Phil’s figures (even if Phil himself does not)”. There is a risk that people see the lower numbers and conclude the “crisis is overblown”, leading to this observation:

    If we’re looking to find out if prices for some set of goods are too high, then by definition we cannot look at what people are spending as a reliable gauge, because one of the big effects of “prices too high” is that people can’t afford what they need.

    If you don’t pay attention to this you get in all sorts of tautologies.

    In the specific world of textbooks, Mike considers the lower-cost method of renting used textbooks, noting:

    So which figure do we use here? The chances of getting everything you need as a rental are low. Sure, you could be the super-prepared student who knows how to work the system and get them *all* as rentals — but not every student can be first in line at the bookstore. And the ones at the back of the line — guess their socio-economic class and first generation status?

    This is an important issue, and I appreciate Mike’s understanding that I am not arguing that college textbook pricing is an overblown crisis. I agree that the crisis is real and that the hardest-hit are likely low socio-economic class and first generation students.

    But let’s move past these agreements and drop the gloves. (more…)

  • Bad Data Can Lead To Bad Policy: College students don’t spend $1,200+ on textbooks

    The average US college student does not spend or budget more than $1,200 for textbooks, with that number rising each year, as commonly reported in the national media. The best data available continues to show that students spend roughly half of that amount, and that number is going down over time, not up.

    Last spring I wrote a post documenting that the College Board is not a reliable source for college textbook expenditures. With last week’s release of College Board data, it is worth repeating that data for their “Books and Supplies” category are:

    average amounts allotted in determining total cost of attendance and do not necessarily reflect actual student expenditures.

    Much more reliable data from the National Association of College Stores (NACS) and the Student Monitor consistently show that students on average spend between $530 – $640 per year for textbooks or “required course materials”. ((Read the spring post and a a postscript if you’d like to see the details.))

    There is also fairly clear data from NACS and Student Monitor showing that student expenditures on textbooks or “required course materials” is going down ((Note that NACS used to be a biannual study and does not have data for AY2009 and AY2011.)). (more…)