Most of the rants about the expense of college textbooks
that appear at the beginning of every term focus on total costs. Priceonomics,
a conservative think tank, took a look at individual majors and found the
average class costs for some are four times the amount of the least expensive
ones.
The site used data from the fall 2015 textbook list
from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. It also assumed students
purchased new versions of every required and optional textbook listed for the
more than 750 courses on the list.
Economics students would pay $317 for books per class,
topping the list. Language majors were second to economics at $268 per class,
but sciences/social sciences filled the next nine slots. African-American studies
books cost just $80 per class.
The most expensive book was a biochemistry text at $406
each. While physics textbooks cost an average of $158 per book, engineering
books were $124 per title. English and literature books were the least
expensive, with an average of $19 per text. The best books at buyback were
music titles, which retained 68% of their value.
“In
order to avoid these costs, many students may choose to buy used books, rent
books, or pray the library has a book when they need it,” wrote Dan Kopf,
author of the Priceonomics blog post.
“There are also advocates pushing professors to choose open textbooks
(textbooks for which there is no copyright). Though it may limit your long-term
earning potential, our analysis suggests another way to lower your textbook
cost is to choose a major in the humanities.”
