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Marketing Professors’ Perspectives on the Cost of College Textbooks: A Pilot Study

Textbooks are an integral component of the higher education process. However, a great deal of concern about the high costs of college textbooks has been expressed by those inside and outside of higher education. The authors focus on the results of a pilot study of a survey of marketing professors’ criteria and use of textbooks and their reactions to some of the changes that have been implemented or may be implemented by universities, state legislatures, and publishers to combat these cost escalations. Findings indicate that respondents appear to have strong resistance to university, legislative, and publisher actions that infringe on their options in selecting textbooks and how long they would have to use a specific textbook before replacing it with a newer edition. This was particularly true of a university policy requiring low-cost textbooks be adopted, requiring instructors to keep textbooks for all classes for at least 3 years, requiring publishers to send an invoice after a 30-day review period, and requiring sending only 1 examination per department. There were also significant differences among respondents based on a t test and analysis of variance. Basically, those who had more teaching experience (11 or more years) were opposed to any legislation or university policy about publishers releasing cost data or requiring the use of the lowest cost text. They also ranked the importance of content higher than their counterparts.