The Pearson Monopoly

Scott Foresman, Penguin, Harcourt and Prentice Hall are all names that may
sound vaguely familiar to you. Look at the stack of outrageously priced
books you bought this semester and you’ll understand why. These are only a
few of the publishing companies now monopolized by Pearson, a publishing
company and testing/assessment service based out of the U.K., working
primarily in ‘serving’ education. Pearson also owns Adobe, Longman,
Wharton, Puffin and Allyn & Bacon under their publishing division and has
stakes in Nook

Now what does this mean in regards to college students? Well, this one
company essentially runs the textbook market, allowing them to have the
last call on prices, which have been steadily on the rise. The Huffington Post
reported that textbook prices have increased 812 percent over the last 30
years. That’s more of an increase than college tuition has seen. They’ve
been called out for publishing new editions of textbooks with little updated
from the last, forcing students to buy new textbooks at exorbitant prices,
which, as we all know too well, means that when it comes time to sell back
books to the bookstore at the end of the year, only a fraction of the original
price is made back. Pearson acquires over half of their annual revenue from
the United States, leaving students footing the bill.
Pearson is not only reaching into the wallets of college students, but is
simultaneously pushing the United States education system up against a
wall. The company is a large backer for the Common Core State Standards
Initiative, an initiative to develop a common standard for all state
curriculums. Common Core is heavily standardized test based and takes
away the freedom of educators in their own classrooms. Pearson has teamed
up with the Gates Foundation in funding and implementing the standards.
That’s right, multinational monopoly, pairing up with Bill Gates, is
orchestrating the future of American education. Common Core strips the
freedom of expression and creativity in education for both teachers and
students, while privatizing education, all in order to turn over a profit.
In 2012, Pearson’s revenue had increased by 12 percent since the previous
year, bringing them in at $1.16 billion. You would think that by how well the
company is doing, it might be reflective of the work they do. Not so much.
Between 2000 and 2012, Minnesota, Florida and Virginia among many other
states, received millions of dollars in settlements from Pearson due to errors
in test grading. Between 2005 and 2006, the company scored over 4,000
SAT college admissions tests incorrectly. The New York Times reported that
this year in New York City, Pearson excluded thousands of eligible students
for testing into gifted programs and of those who were tested, hundreds
received incorrect scores. This is all while Pearson is in a five-year contract
with New York State worth $32 million.
The corruption within the Pearson monopoly is beyond belief. Their
privatization of public education, monopolization of educational publishing
and overall gross misconduct is leading to some of the worst issues the
American education system has ever seen. Here’s to the future of
commodified students, fluent in standardized test riddles and laden with
debt (most likely holding a complimentary Pearson water bottle.)

Thank you for writing about Pearson’s control of educational materials.

Recently, Microsoft announced a deal with Pearson to develop curriculum for
Common Core. It has been reported that Bill Gates spent more than a billion
dollars to create and promote Common Core. Diane Ravitch’s blog identifies
the big businesses and hedge fund owners pushing both privatization and
Common Core.
Since main stream media is owned by big business, it is promising that
smaller publications like SUNY’s will address an important issue.

Thank you. Someone finally understands. The public school system is so

messed up, and everyone thinks its normal. At my school, we need two tests
a quarter, per a class. That’s 28 tests a semester, not counting midterms,
finals, and because I live in Virginia, SOL’s. Teachers can only teach off of the
SOL, so teachers are forced to teach in boring ways and cram as much as
they can, pushing students to do more then they can handle, because of
they don’t students will do bad on tests, then said teachers would lose jobs.
The stress levels of high schools are at the same level as people in insane
asylums in the 50’s. That is not good. We need to get Pearson out of our
education, so we can learn well, and not how to do multiple choice and
answer repeated questions on tests and quizzes.

Why You Should Care: The

Textbook Industry’s Grip on the
College Student
College is ungodly expensive. Even with scholarships and grants paying large
portions of tuition and fees, most undergrad students end up with crushing
debt that won’t be paid off until late in their careers. Despite our hesitancy
(and often inability) to pay full tuition, we should understand that most of the
money paid does go to good use. Schools need to run, and well educated
and skilled faculty need to be paid fairly. So, if for the purpose of this
discussion, we forget about high tuition, what else makes college so
expensive?
I present one simple word: textbooks.

From literature to science, students are burdened with incredible

expectations when it comes to books. We are required to buy snazzy
educational masterpieces semester after semester at exorbitant prices. In
three semesters of study I have already paid about $600 for textbooks, and I
am but a lowly English major. Compared to the amount nursing student pay,
$600 is basically nothing, as used nursing textbooks from the bookstore run,
on the low end, about $100 apiece.

How and why did this industry get this way? Why are we paying so much? Is
there anything we can do about it? I have three points that will hopefully
shed some light on the answers.

Number One: Textbook companies face next to no competition

and are clearly milking the system.

Today, the “Big Three” textbook companies, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin

Harcourt, and Pearson PLC (which owns the more familiar Prentice-Hall
name), control 90% of the textbook industry. With so little lack of
competition, prices can then be set arbitrarily high and astounding profits
can be made. For example, Pearson PLC reported a profit of 9.43 billion
dollars in fiscal year 2013. For some perspective, McDonald’s profit that year
was only $5.6 billion.

So why doesn’t something happen? Shouldn’t this be fixed? As good little

capitalists we were told the market would correct itself, so why hasn’t Lord
Free Market carved a bloody hole in McGraw-Hill and freed us from our
economic enslavement? The answer lies in the nature of the broken
economic market that is the textbook trade. Theoretically, the consumer
won’t buy things that they feel are overpriced, and as a result, prices are
lowered by suppliers until buyers will buy and thus equilibrium is achieved.
The problem with textbooks is that we, the consumers, simply don’t have a
choice in what we buy. Textbook companies can set their prices anywhere
they want because we will have to pay what they ask. This is far from ideal.

Number Two: Middlemen sellers are making tidy profits of

our educational materials.

Although many students do use online stores like Amazon and Chegg to buy
their books, the closest-to-home book vendor is definitely the Hesston
College bookstore. Now, I don’t want to accuse the bookstore of trying to
exploit students, and I do love spending money there (I mean, they sell
Ramen, so they can’t be all bad). In addition, what money they do make goes
back to the school, supporting day-to-day college operations, which
support students. But, I happened across something while looking at the
school’s budget from the last few years that affected my view: the bookstore
brought in $312,000 in gross revenue during the 2014-2015 school year,
when there were 428 students enrolled. That comes out to just under $730
dollars per student.

They didn’t make that money off Ramen.

Revenue, of course, doesn’t take into consideration the bookstores own

costs, and in particular, the cost of the books. However, Mark Landes, Vice
President of Finance and Auxiliary Services, doesn’t deny the fact that books
sold on campus are pricey, saying that that books in the bookstore are sold
“at a considerable markup.” He cautioned this statement by reminding that
books will be expensive no matter where they are purchased (which is
definitely true). According to Landes, of the revenue generated last school
year, $242,000 of the $312,000 was from books, not clothing and other
bookstore items. With this in mind, I encourage my fellow students to weigh
the convenience of using the bookstore with the slightly higher price they
will pay.

Number Three: We are all complacent in letting this profit

machine milk us dry.

We buy new editions that are copied almost verbatim from previous ones
(For example, I am using an old edition of the Music Theory textbook and the
only difference is the page numbers. Getting the old edition saved me ). We
blindly buy individual textbooks instead of trying to share. We fail to speak
against the waste in the system and giggle when wellness books end up in
the trash after eight weeks.

Teachers and faculty, I cannot help but think that you may also be partially at
fault. You prefer the convenience of online assignments to what textbooks
actually have to say. You require new editions, forgetting that old ones work
perfectly well and are nearly identical. My question for you: are the new
chapter addendums exercises really worth your students additional $90
dollars? You are a dedicated and wonderful group of instructors, I would
encourage you to seek creative alternatives to standard textbooks. You will
benefit student immensely and the world as well.

In conclusion, the textbook industry is a cruel, cruel game. Teachers, stop

being pawns of ungodly large corporations and use old editions for classes.
Students, take the difficult route and buy even older editions, share books,
and give your empty bank accounts voices.

The textbook industry is a game, and it’s time to stop playing.

Caleb Schrock-Hurst is a Sophomore at Hesston College where he works as a

Writing Assistant, Ministry Assistant, and Horizon contributor. He uses
outdated textbooks for two of his classes. Feel free to contact him at
caleb.schrock-hurst@hesston.edu or find him on campus if you wish to
exchange verbal or physical blows.

I appreciated your nicely written and well intended article. I concurr with
many of your points and the general premise of your argument. Although
there are more dynamics that occur and faculty limitations regarding
assignment of textbook editions. An instructor only has so much freedom in
using older editions. In a sense a professor is mandated by several entities
(publishers,the institution, copyright laws, and others) to use the newest
edition. Then there is the huge logistical challenge in teaching among
multiple versions (assigning homework problems, referring to example
problems, etc.). Yet, change occurs from awareness and I value the dialog
you have started.

Textbook Companies Have Found

a Way to Charge Students to Do
Homework
Not doing your homework remains free.

As if college text books weren't already stupidly expensive enough, a few

publishers have found a way to make even more money off of students by
charging for access codes.

Companies like McGraw Hill and Pearson have created online resources for
completing course assignments that require a subscription of anywhere from
$88 to $150. Text books were already overpriced based on a system of
constantly releasing new editions, but at least you used to be able to get
around that by sharing with a friend. This new system makes that near-
impossible.

"When we talk about access codes we see it as the new face of the textbook
monopoly, a new way to lock students around this system,” higher education
advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Ethan Senack told
BuzzFeed.

"Rather than $250 [for a print textbook] you’re paying $120," he added. "But
because it’s all digital it eliminates the used book market and eliminates any
sharing and because homework and tests are through an access code, it
eliminates any ability to opt out."

As Buzzfeed notes, the publishers themselves are claiming this is a better

deal, but it creates a frustrating financial requirement, which makes it even
harder for some students to be having the best experience in the classroom.
You also can't sell a digital access code at the end of the semester.

"You can’t sell any of it back," said a student who spent $900 on access
codes last semester. "With a traditional textbook you can sell it for $30 to
$50 and that helps to pay for your new semester’s books. With an access
code, you’re out of that money."

Higher education students tired of paying hundreds of extra dollars for

textbooks and their materials (like MyLab.. and Connect) on top of already
expensive tuition? Join UOO and take steps at your College or University to
boycott these major companies who are running a monopoly on education.
Let your voice be heard! I'm sick of it!! You should be too. I will be marching
up to the school board and see what I can do to start a boycott at my
University.

Electronic Textbooks? You Bet

Will Apple 's iPad kill the textbook?

Many educators are pointing to Apple Computer's recently announced iPad
as the prototype for an e-reader that will be able to hold all the textbooks a
student needs. Its color touch-screen, interactive-video capability and virtual
keyboard, they say, give it greater potential for textbook users than
monochrome readers like Amazon's Kindle.

Apple has been quiet about its designs on the textbook business since
unveiling its new device, which will go on sale this month. Meanwhile,
Hewlett-Packard and Dell have also announced portable tablet computers,
and Microsoft is rumored to be developing a two-screen model.

While some students may be using notebooks or their more portable cousins,
netbooks, to read textbooks, some experts predict that within the next 10
years, most U.S. college students--and many high-school and elementary-
school students as well--will probably be reading course materials on an
electronic device instead of in a paper book. And that will have a broad
impact on students and teachers, not to mention the $9.9 billion textbook-
publishing business.

In Pictures: The Kookiest Inventions

If this is, indeed, the future of textbook publishing, a key question remains
unanswered: Is it economically sustainable? Almost every industry--from
travel agencies to newspapers--that has moved to a digital model has seen
its profits decimated and some existing participants bankrupted. Textbook
"publishers are aware that their current model is doomed," says Peter S.
Fader, co-director of the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative (WIMI). Adds
WIMI co-director Eric Bradlow: "It's not just that the bound-dead-tree is a
dead model. [It’s that publishers] will have less monopoly power." Assuming
the cost of production goes down, "market forces suggest prices would come
down" as well.

Bradlow also predicts there will be new revenue models for publishers,
including timely ads and electronic coupons. For example, when students
finish a chapter and show mastery by passing a self-assessment quiz, an ad
could pop up suggesting they reward themselves with a run to the local Ben
& Jerry's.

Frank Lyman, executive vice president of online-text publisher CourseSmart,

says that Apple’s tablet "is likely to boost demand for digital textbooks
because it will capture the imagination of the next group of students who
haven’t yet tried eTextbooks." He adds that there are 75 million iPod and
iPhone users who already know how to use the iPad because of its similar
interface.

Within days of the iPad announcement, a group of major educational

publishers announced they all would use technology developed by
ScrollMotion, a New York-based content technology company, to transfer
textbooks to the iPad. The group includes McGraw-Hill Companies; Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt K-12, which is a unit of Education Media & Publishing Group;
Pearson 's Pearson Education, and Kaplan, the test-prep unit of The
Washington Post Co.

At the end of February, McGraw-Hill’s Macmillan unit unveiled a new

electronic book imprint, DynamicBooks, that will let professors create their
own textbooks, using their own material as well as materials developed by
Macmillan. "Basically, they will go online, log on to the authoring tool, have
the content right there and make whatever changes they want," Brian
Napack, president of Macmillan, told The New York Times. "And we don’t
even look at it." DynamicBooks includes such titles as Chemical Principles:
The Quest for Insight, by Peter Atkins and Loretta Jones, and Psychology, by
Daniel L. Schacter, Daniel T. Gilbert and Daniel M. Wegner. Students will pay
about one-third as much as the the paper-bound version's list price.

ScrollMotion already partners with some publishers to make books into

iPhone apps. "Education-related content has always been on the cusp of
taking advantage of the promise of technology. Finally it's here," says
ScrollMotion CEO John Lema. Rik Kranenburg, group president of higher
education for the education unit of McGraw-Hill Companies, recently told The
Wall Street Journal: "People have been talking about the impact of
technology on education for 25 years. It feels like it is really going to happen
in 2010."

"[We] have been anticipating this," adds Bruce Hildebrand, executive director
for higher education at the American Association of Publishers, a trade
group. Publishers, he says, will "provide their content on the best technology
available," although he notes that electronic readers don't yet meet
educational needs as well as textbooks do.

Top Tips: The Latest Tricks For Getting Found Online

Educators and book publishers are also predicting that eTextbooks will
change the way teachers teach, students learn and textbook publishers sell
their content--often in unexpected ways. Yet while students eagerly
anticipate lower costs and lighter backpacks, teachers remain wary and
some publishers still question the model. Wharton management professor
Daniel Raff, who has studied the book business, suggests that publishers will
maintain their grip on the school market. "One expects textbooks to have a
certain authority. To the extent they are brands, they would retain [that]
authority." He notes that textbook publishers also have long lasting
copyrights along with skills in managing licensed materials. Moreover, it isn't
clear that students are ready to study from an eTextbook. As Stephen Kobrin,
editor of Wharton School Publishing (WSP), notes, "we publish all our course
packs [collections of customized course readings] digitally. When I ask
students how they read them, they say they print them out." Kobrin
estimates that currently 4% to 5% of WSP’s business is digital.

Indeed, approximately 88% of college students own laptops, according to a

study by EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, a Boulder, Co., think tank.
But so far, few of them download electronic textbooks, even though they
could save money. The National Association of College Stores estimates that
less than 3% of textbook sales today are digital versions, although many
paper textbooks are sold with supplemental materials on CDs or web sites.
Fader predicts that soon "some innovative college" will require incoming
freshmen to get an iPad and will push professors to use them for course
materials.

$220.95 vs. $110.49

Electronic readers have already shaken up the market for fiction and non-
fiction books, known in the industry as "trade books." Trade books accounted
for $8.1 billion in U.S. sales in 2008, the most recent full year reported by
AAP, 18% less than the textbook market. Forrester Research estimates that
book lovers bought some 3 million electronic readers last year. E-readers
attract some of the book industry's best customers, who regret the demise of
bookstores but like the idea of $10 titles that can be downloaded at will and
don't crowd overburdened bookshelves.

"As complex as the issues are for trade book publishing, it's far more so in
textbooks," says Fader, partly because price-sensitive students are not the
ones making the decisions. At the college level, text book decisions are made
by teachers. In K-12, they are mostly made by school boards. K-12 schools
"will be very slow to change, partly due to pure economics" since they would
have to equip whole classes of students with fragile, mobile readers, says
Fader. In addition, teacher unions will be skeptical and school boards will be
hesitant to make the leap because "people focus on potential downsides."
Still, he says: "The evolution is inevitable. It's just a question of when."

In the specialized education arena, digital textbooks are likely to appear very
soon, Fader adds. "I see it most likely to start through executive education,"
where binders of material rather than traditional texts are typically handed
out. Conceivably, an e-reader with content installed could be bundled as part
of the course price. "It's a high-margin environment."

Kaplan has already announced that it is making its MCAT preparatory course
materials (for admission to medical school) available as apps on iPhones and
iPods using ScrollMotion technology. Lema says they will also be available on
the iPad. According to Kaplan, the apps replace 20 pounds of paper
instructional materials.

And despite mixed feelings, the textbook industry has already been moving
into digital distribution. Five of the biggest textbook publishers founded
CourseSmart in 2007 to provide digital versions of college textbooks. The
company now has some 6,000 textbooks available in a common format that
students can download. Students get a 180-day license for the book rather
than permanent ownership--which means there is no used-book market for
CourseSmart titles.

CourseSmart prices are typically half the list price of a textbook. For
example, Harvard professor Gregory Mankiw's introductory Principles of
Economics, which has a list price of $220.95, costs $110.49 for the electronic
version at CourseSmart. Amazon.com sells the paper version for $168.01 and
an electronic Kindle version for $141.56. The paper version has 904 pages
and weighs 4.2 pounds.

Although teachers and students hope that digital textbooks will mean lower
prices, textbook publishers "price very aggressively," says Raff. A 2005
Government Accounting Office study of textbook prices found that publishers
raised prices an average of 6% a year in the previous two decades--twice the
rate of inflation and nearly as fast as the 7% annual increase in college
tuition. Raff predicts, however, that with Amazon and Apple competing to
deliver content, pricing will come down.

Publishing industry insiders say privately that they could realize higher
profits despite much lower prices if digital downloading eliminated the used
and rental book market along with the costs of printing and stocking paper
books. They say they could prevent book sharing by forcing students to do
workbook exercises linked to their textbooks. Many already offer their texts
directly from their own web sites, sometimes at prices lower than
CourseSmart, which means that none of the book's price goes to bookstores
or online sellers.

But digital readers could also make it easier for new entrants in the market.
Amazon or Apple could become textbook publishers themselves, using their
recommendation engines to replace textbook salesmen in reaching out to
teachers. Some teachers might be more open to assigning open-source
textbooks from the Wikimedia foundation if they were on digital readers that
students already owned.

At the college level, professors are already intrigued by the idea of creating
custom textbooks for a course by assigning a few chapters from one book, a
few chapters from another, and some articles and original source material.
Such modular textbooks are available in paper form, but they haven't been
popular, partly because they look odd given their many different type-faces
and formats. In the digital world, it should be easier to create such
customized textbooks, but licensing copyrights will remain challenging.

Textbook publishers currently handle such tasks and custom print textbooks
for individual classes. For example, Pearson's custom library group lets
professors go online to create a book, mixing and matching chapters from
several of its textbooks in subjects. Professors can include up to 20% outside
material, whether written by them or chosen elsewhere, with Pearson
managing permissions.

Highlighting Key Passages

Digital textbooks will need to have features students take for granted in
paper books, such as the ability to highlight key passages and take notes
that can be attached to pages. Digital versions also need consistent
pagination so that teachers can give assignments. Even with a search
function, digital books will still need tables of contents, indexes and
glossaries.

Even with these limitations, digital presentation opens up a number of new

possibilities for textbooks. With interactive graphs in an economics book, for
example, students could try different costs to see the impact on demand or
different supply levels to gauge the change in price. ScrollMotion promises
publishers that its technology will let them embed video that students can
watch, record lectures linked to chapters and offer self-assessment tests.

"You will see more up-to-date textbooks that incorporate cutting-edge

research without waiting for the next edition," says Bradlow. Publishers may
build communities of expertise around their digital textbooks with the ability
to post comments or questions. As Bradlow notes, "It's not static content
anymore."

Hey Amazon: Where Is the Netflix

for College Textbooks?

Is reading going the way of all-you-can view movies? In the era of 50 million
Netflix subscribers, Amazon just announced an all-you-can-read service
called Kindle Unlimited that offers a collection of over 600,000 eBook titles
for $9.99 per month. Hooray for those wishing to read book series like “Harry
Potter,” “Lord of the Rings,” and “Hunger Games.”
But what about the 20 million college students about to read volumes of
psychology, history, physiology, and humanities textbooks? With summer
half over, most are turning their attention to purchasing expensive textbooks
in a few short weeks.

The Amazon Textbook Store makes millions of dollars annually on students

who now shop online and buy their textbooks with or without their parent’s
credit cards, avoiding the empty shelves of their college bookstores who
have run out of used books even prior to the class starting.

A small and unimpressive handful of the widely used textbooks needed by

college students are being offered on Amazon’s self-proclaimed “Netflix for
books” service. Take for example, McGraw Hill’s College Physics, 4th Edition
by Alan Giambattista which still sells for over $200 on Amazon or Pearson’s
College Algebra (6th Edition) by Robert F. Blitzer for over $140 for a simple
Kindle download. Even a free to use open-source textbook like Introduction
to Sociology by Openstax College, which was funded by Dr. Gary Michelson’s
20 Million Minds Foundation on behalf of students, is offensively being
offered on Amazon Textbooks for $29, not including shipping.

These textbooks should be an integral part of Kindle Unlimited, yet they are
not.

Rather than shake up an industry in need of a disruptive push, Amazon has

chosen to keep the old monopoly driven billion-dollar college textbook
industry intact. Rather than allowing students to download their books for
roughly $30 per semester they are again stuck with an unimpressive promise
of free two-day shipping for purchasing on Amazon’s site.

It seems the true and most lasting impact of allowing “books” to be served
up Netflix style isn’t for the average trade-book reader who used to purchase
about 25 Kindle books per year, but rather the student shelling out $1200
per year for textbooks most cannot afford.

It’s been a huge problem for decades. A lingering thorn to students and their
parents every semester, regrettably chronicled by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics which reports that the price of textbooks has risen more than 800
percent over the past 30 years, a rate faster than medical services (575
percent), new home prices (325 percent), and the consumer price index (250
percent).

Amazon’s announcement clearly would have been and maybe still can be a
game-changer if this retail Goliath offered all college textbooks produced by
the four leading textbook publishers who control 80 percent of the market
and sell their goods on Amazon’s online market channel.
Unfortunately, the Big Four aren’t on the 600,000 free book list offering their
most profitable textbooks that are projected to cost students over $10 billion
this academic year.
There isn’t a popular textbook from Pearson, McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, or Cengage available on Amazon Unlimited.

And even in the books-for-pleasure category, this new subscription service

was announced without a single secure deal from the Big 5 trade-book
publishers: Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette and
Simon & Schuster.

So where are the 600,000 free books coming from? Most are from Amazon’s
own publishing program and from Kindle Direct Publishing library. Most
industry experts are calling Amazon’s press driven announcement the
marketing of a $120 “glorified library card,” but then again most can simply
use their Kindle now to check out e-books from most public libraries for free
on apps like Overdrive.

The Amazon announcement was not a novel breakthrough. Today, providers

with similar services include Oyster Books ($9.95 per month) or Scribd ($8.99
per month), both with smaller book selections than Kindle Unlimited
(500,000 and 400,000 titles, respectively), but who have at least secured
major players like HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster.

For college students starting classes in about 90 days, Amazon’s all-you-can-

read announcement could have challenged the monetary hold they have on
20 million U.S. college students.

Textbook publishers today have college students paralyzed to a point they

rarely buy all required textbooks according to the advocacy group U.S. Public
Interest Research Group (PIRG). In a recently issued report entitled, “Fixing
the Broken Textbook Market” they cite data that confirms 94 percent of the
students reported not buying the required book and 65 percent of them
decided against buying a textbook because it was too expensive.

Amazon’s entry into the subscription space could have ended faculty’s
practice of sending students to the college bookstore for a $150 textbook
(average cost of over $1200 per year) and instead making students aware
that they can purchase Amazon Unlimited for $30 the entire semester.

Amazon has always been the strongest of the tech warriors, able to tame
monopolistic players in the retail market, thus I had hope they would be able
to offer students a contrasting distribution model that offers them an easy
path to affordable textbooks. Students more than ever need “Book-of-the-
Semester Club” available today for trade books or a $9.99 subscription
service offered to them when they buy movies, videos, and music.

Unfortunately, the four largest textbook publishers have their own insidious
version of a subscription model. CourseSmart, a digital arm of all four
publishers, with textbooks three deep in most subjects, announced
Subscription Packs last year, a service offering “qualifying” students a
limited, set to expire in 150 days, choice of no more than 6 books for $200.
In short, textbook publishers continue to control their distribution channels
and are unlikely to join the Amazon experiment.

Is this REALLY the model for college textbook savings, or rather the model
allowing increased publisher profits? Imagine any current trade book
subscription startup asking their readers to pay $200 every 150 days to
access only 6 books, when today they charge $9.99 for over 600,000 books?

Imagine the real Netflix telling its customers they will pay nearly $500 per
year to access only 12 movies or TV shows and after 3 months each will
conclusively expire.

The Amazon announcement empty as it is, should be a wake-up call. We

need innovative tech companies like Amazon to push textbooks along a
Netflix path and bring textbook publishers to the table to offer a low cost “all-
you-can-read” plan of no more than $9.99 per month available to all college
students without all the restrictions and disappearing content.

This approach is what education is all about. Heavy on sharing knowledge, it

destroys the notion that educational information is proprietary and can be
locked away in some pricey expiring eBook code or publishers holding back
from participating in subscription models like Amazon’s.

Clearly a true pioneering Netflix textbook subscription model would support

what students already intuitively experience on their iPads and laptops, all
filled with thousands of content choices from video, movies, or music, but
purchased at a fraction of the cost. Why should textbooks be any different?

Some College Students Are Angry

They Have To Pay To Do Their
Homework
Digital learning systems now charge students for access codes needed to
complete coursework, take quizzes, and turn in homework.
As universities go digital, students are complaining of a new hit to their
finances that is replacing — and sometimes joining — expensive textbooks:
pricey online access codes that are required to complete coursework and
submit assignments.

The codes — which typically range in price from $80 to $155 per course —
give students online access to systems developed by education companies
like McGraw Hill and Pearson. These companies, which long reaped big
profits as textbook publishers, have boasted to investors that their new
online offerings, when pushed to students through universities they partner
with, represent the future of the industry.

But critics say the digital access codes represent the same price-gouging
ethos of the textbook business, and are even harder for students to opt out
of. While they could once buy second-hand textbooks, or share copies with
friends, the digital systems are essentially impossible to avoid.

"When we talk about access codes we see it as the new face of the textbook
monopoly, a new way to lock students around this system," said Ethan
Senack, the higher education advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research
Group, to BuzzFeed News.

"Rather than $250 [for a print textbook] you’re paying $120," said Senack.
"But because it’s all digital it eliminates the used book market and eliminates
any sharing and because homework and tests are through an access code, it
eliminates any ability to opt out."

Sarina Harper, a 19-year-old sophomore at Virginia Tech, was faced with a

tough dilemma when she first started college in 2015 — pay rent or pay to
turn in her chemistry homework.

Harper told BuzzFeed News that her freshman chemistry class required her
to use Connect, a system provided by McGraw Hill where students can
submit homework, take exams and track their grades. But the code to access
the program cost $120 — a big ask for Harper, who had already put down
$450 for textbooks, and had rent day approaching.

She decided to wait for her next work study paycheck, which was typically
$150 to $200, to pay for the code. She knew that her chemistry grade may
take a dive as a result.

"It’s a balancing act," she said. "What do I really right now? Can I really afford
these access codes now?" She didn't hand in her first two assignments for
chemistry, which started her out in the class with a failing grade.

The access codes may be another financial headache for students, but for
textbook businesses, they're the future. McGraw Hill Education, which
controls 21% of the higher education market, reported in March that its
digital content sales surpassed print sales for the first time in 2015. The
company said that 45% of its $140 million revenue in 2015 "was derived
from digital products," according to its annual report.

Pearson reported a 3% increase in global digital registrations last year for its
MyLab programs, which totaled 13 million in 2015. McGraw Hill reported a
12% increase in its paid activations for its LearnSmart and Connect programs
from last school year to 1.2 million.

A Pearson spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that "digital materials are less
expensive and a good investment" that offer new features, like audio texts,
personalized knowledge checks and expert videos. Its digital course
materials save students up to 60% compared to traditional printed
textbooks, the company added.

McGraw Hill Education did not respond to a request for comment, but its CEO
David Levin told the Financial Times in August 2015 that "in higher ed, the
era of the textbook is now over."

The textbook industry insists the online systems represent a better deal for
students.

"These digital products are not just mechanisms for students to submit
homework, they offer all kinds of features," David Anderson, the executive
director of higher education with the Association of American Publishers, told
BuzzFeed News. "It's very robust in helping students understand in a way
that you can’t do with a print homework assignments."

David Hunt, an associate professor in sociology at Augusta University, which

has rolled out digital textbooks across its math and psychology departments,
told BuzzFeed News that he understands the utility of using systems that
require access codes. But he doesn't require his students to buy access to a
learning program that controls the class assignments.

"I try to make things as inexpensive as possible," said Hunt who uses free
digital textbooks for his classes but designs his own curriculum. "[The online
systems] may make my life a lot easier but I feel like I'm giving up control.
The discussions are the things where my expertise can benefit the students
most."

A 20-year old junior at Georgia Southern University, who asked to remain

anonymous, told BuzzFeed News that she normally spends anywhere from
$500 to $600 on access codes for class. In one case, the professor didn't
require students to buy a textbook, just an access code to turn in homework.

This year she said she spent $900 on access codes to books and programs.

"That’s two months of rent," she said. "You can’t sell any of it back. With a
traditional textbook you can sell it for $30 to $50 and that helps to pay for
your new semester's books. With an access code, you’re out of that money."

Benjamin Wolverton, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of South

Carolina, told BuzzFeed News that "it is ridiculous that after paying tens of
thousands in tuition we have to pay out of pocket for all these access codes
to do our homework."

Many of the access codes he's purchased over his college career have been
required simply to complete homework or quizzes. "A lot of times it’s only
10% of your grade in class," he said. "You’re paying so much money for
something that hardly affects your grade — but if you didn't have it, it would
affect your grade enough. It would be bad to start out at a B or C."

Wolverton said he spent $500 on access codes for digital books and
programs this semester.

Harper, a pre-veterinarian animal and poultry science major, is taking

chemistry again this year and had to buy a new access code to hand in her
homework.

She rented her economics and statistics textbooks for about $20 each. But
her access codes for homework, which can't be rented or bought second
hand, were her most expensive purchases: $120 and $85.
She still remembers the sting of her first experience skipping an assignment
due to the high prices.

"We don’t really have a missed assignment policy," she said. "If you miss it,
you just miss it. I just got zeros on a couple first assignments. I managed to
pull everything back up. But as a scared freshman looking at their grades,
it’s not fun."

Defying perceptions of a dying industry, one sector of the publishing world is

still doing brisk business these days, and it’s all thanks to college students.

After raising the average college textbooks’ price nearly 200 percent since
1997—a surge outpaced only by hospital services — the corporate giants of
educational publishing have set their sights on a new area for growth.

“The era of the textbook is now over” McGraw Hill CEO David Levin
announced to the Financial Times in 2015. Levin’s proclamation would serve
as public notice that while price gouging college students with ever-
escalating textbook prices may have built their near monopolies, the college
textbook industry was moving on. Heavy hitters like McGraw Hill and its rival
Pearson were turning the page on the textbook era and doing so with
giddiness rather than trepidation.

As college goes digital, the publishers have devised an audacious and

lucrative new revenue stream for themselves: having students pay them to
do their homework.

They’re called “access codes” and as a business major, Nick Darlington has
spent hundreds of dollars per quarter on them.

A recent marketing class required the DePaul sophomore to purchase two

third-party access codes, $200 for a HitPlay.net homework module (similar to
Pearson and McGraw Hill’s own MyLab and Connect digital programs) and
even an additional $35 for an online test. Ultimately, Darlington would
receive a grade deduction on the test because he lacked the money to
submit his work.

Like a growing number of business and science classes in the access code
era, you have to pay to play. No codes? No chance of passing the class.

Professor Paul Kessenich, who taught Darlington’s class, insists the access
codes deliver better value.

“Rather than have to read a text they are getting live videos of each of the
points by an…award winning marketing person,” he said. Students who balk
at such access codes, he argues, ”don’t appreciate the value their getting.”

Kessenich isn’t alone among faculty in championing the new access code
model as the inevitable successors to an obsolete “dead tree” model.
Programs like Pearson’s MyLab, they argue, offer class content in a more
accessible way to students on the go, delivering instant test results and
offering an alternative to the traditional “one size fits all” physical textbook.
And to make this case, publishers like McGraw Hill have adopted sales tactics
long associated with Big Pharma, often deploying an army of sales reps to
sell professors like Kessenich on the benefits of moving their classes into
their own access code-restricted digital futures.

Apparently, they’ve succeeded; 2016 saw a 12 percent jump in purchases for

McGraw Hill’s Connect and LearnSmart programs. But while many professors
and lobbyists have positive things to say about this model, it’s hard to find
the same enthusiasm among students who actually purchase the codes.

DePaul senior Tony Paoli is one of them.

I pay $30,000 a year to learn from expert professors and access DePaul
amenities, I don’t pay $30k a year to then pagan extra hundred dollars to
have my professors pawn their work off to a third rate, for-profit company.

A glance at tweets using the #AccessCodes hashtag suggests Paoli’s

sentiments are not unique. One typical tweet reads, “You know ur a broke
college kid when you’re willing to use the end piece of a loaf of bread on ur
sandwich #AccessCodes&Rent.”

However, Marisa Bluestone, an industry spokesperson, argues these growing

complaints ignore the reality that digital products are actually helping
students to save money.”

“Students have spent less on their course materials since 2017 than they
have in prior years,” she said.

The average cost of access codes, roughly $100, is less than an average new
textbook — though unlike the latter, codes can’t be shared. But critics claim
this factoid obscures a larger truth surrounding access codes which explains
both what attracts Wall Street investors to them as engines of future profit—
the fact that students have to buy them to pass classes—and what makes
their rise so detrimental to the poorest college students.

The DePaul Student Government Association (SGA) is participating in a

March 6 panel from 11:30 to 1 p.m. in room 115 of the Richardson Library on
advancing free digital alternatives to access codes as part of an overall
discussion on affordability. More broadly, DePaul SGA president, Michael
Lynch, assures students that access codes have and will increasingly be part
of the organization’s agenda.

This may be the best those morally opposed to paying mega corporations to
do homework can hope for.