As a university and academic press publishing veteran, I have sat in meetings in which the discussion would eventually come to “getting as much as the market would bear” for the pricing of a book.  Now, with my eldest son preparing to enter college in the Fall, I have a schizophrenic new perspective on an industry in which I've worked for more than a dozen years.

I would also be thrilled to find some of the “bargain" colleges cited in a recent NCES survey of tuition.  My own experience in college-shopping, while certainly skewed to east coast norms and the desire to get my child into the best possible school, tells me the figures I saw in their most recent survey were low, or included many community colleges in the tabulation (and there’s nothing wrong with CC’s, as our president has wisely pointed out) to bring the average down.  Or, they did not consider the full cost of college which includes room and board, meal plans, and all the other ancillary costs that involve situating a young person within the halls of ivy. Whatever the numbers, the article makes it clear that the “rich college student” in America is myth.  Most college students come from middle class, working class, and struggling-class homes. 

A big expense of attending college is that of textbooks, which have never been included in the costs of tuition at American schools.  Most kids are oblivious to the hit on the family's treasure their tuition has cost.  If they have student loans they won’t begin feeling that pain until after they graduate.  But they—and their parents—are acutely aware of sticker shock when they go to the college bookstore (or online) the first time to purchase their textbooks.

There is no question students are taking increased advantage of used book and rental options.  Sharing textbooks is also more common and so, likely, are the unquantifiable “back door” alternatives?  While no college has taken the lead in including textbooks in the cost of tuition, my recent experience as a college-shopping consumer has shown that many of them seem willing to provide laptops, tablets, and all-around “wired” environments as an enrollment incentive to their prospective students.  This is hastening the move to e-books with the expectations that they should not be as expensive as their physical counterparts.

When I sit in pricing meetings or prepare for a sales call, now, trying to estimate how much of a price a book can take in  the student market I am also asking how much their parents—educated, informed parents who love the book and care about their child’s education—can take.   The ability for the modern student to shop around in purchasing his textbooks and for the modern professor, sympathetic to his student’s finances, to assign cheaper textbooks, means the question of pricing will always be with us.   

Happily, the most powerful weapons in our publishing arsenal are the books themselves. 

A house like the one I work for has the ability to push the outside of the envelope a bit more on prices than most, though the stress for everybody should be on “a bit.”  Pushing too much can cross the line from confidence in our literary wares to an unseemly disregard for the real-world needs of our customers: the students AND the parents who foot the bill.

Writing in full parent mode.