Textbooks are overpriced. This sentence is not an opinion, even as much as it sounds like one. It is a measurable fact that the price of textbooks has been artificially inflated to a degree that puts actual inflation to shame.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index has risen 250% in the last 45 years, and while this is a fairly large amount to most people, it pales in comparison to the astounding 812% increase in textbook cost in the same amount of time.

The source of this increase is multifaceted, but a large part of it is a lack of consumer control. The students who buy the books are not the ones deciding which ones are printed, as would be the case with most other printed media. Professors and faculty decide the curriculum and textbooks necessary, which can allow publishers to jack up their prices and force students to pay for it to keep up their grades.

There is a simple solution to this issue, which gives the students the power to reduce the price of their textbooks and hopefully stop publishers from reprinting the same material every year in a different format.

Pirating textbooks.

Most students would recoil at such a suggestion, and as I cannot legally encourage anyone to commit a crime, I must say that piracy is still illegal.

But in addition to that, I will also tell you that there are numerous locations online where students have uploaded their old e-textbooks without any Digital Rights Management (DRM), completely free of charge. While not all textbooks can be found online in this way, and publishers can still include online subscriptions to homework access locations, many textbooks are presently available, and many more will be added as you read this.

Anyone who feels bad for the authors of these textbooks know that the authors listed at the front of textbooks are almost never the ones who write them. Basic textbooks are written by hired writers who may have absolutely no knowledge of what they are writing about. In addition, people in the field the textbook refers to rarely, if ever, review these textbooks.

While college bookstores may seem at risk with textbook piracy, in reality they often make very little from textbooks sales. Publishers tend to take upwards of 75% of all profits made from textbooks, while college bookstores rely more on apparel and merchandise.

My first semester of college at Washington State University I paid over $500 dollars for textbooks; this quarter I didn’t purchase a single one, and elected instead to borrow from friends and try to get by without.

I have never pirated a textbook. I cannot encourage anyone to pirate a textbook. On an unrelated note, $0 is definitely less than $500.