risings costs of college textbooks

College textbooks are becoming so expensive that many students, already paying high fees beyond the amount shelled out for course credit hours, get by without them.

Textbook prices have been rising at double the rate of inflation for the past two decades, according to a Government Accountability Office study. In Virginia, more than 40 percent of students surveyed by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia said they sometimes just do without.

That's been increasing, said Jennifer Libertowski of the National Association of College Stores; recently, the group found that nearly 60 percent of students nationwide choose not to buy all the course materials.

For those whose parents are writing $40,000-plus tuition checks every year and covering rent for a D.C. apartment, a few books might not seem like a big deal. But for students working to pay for school or for those whose parents sweat every increase in tuition, book prices can be a nasty surprise -- one more thing putting college out of reach. (WaPo)

When I was in college, we often theorized that professors had deals with the writers of textbooks, in that the profs would get some kick-back money for picking certain books over others. We also thought that especially greedy textbook companies made sure to print new editions every three years, so that the money could keep rolling in.

A THOUGHT: Is there a correlation between the rising costs of college textbooks, and a rise in the level of crystal meth use? Just wondering...