Comm 280 Group 8 Study

Rachel BraunDavid Dahl

Katie ArdmoreKallie Smith

Textbooks: Dead Weight or Building Blocks?

Abstract

Through our research, we have looked to answer the question; Is it worth it in the long run to pay for a college education? We researched the cost of textbook prices at Brigham Young University - Idaho and compared that information with the average starting salary of select careers. The test majors for our research were mechanical engineering, nursing, journalism, and accounting. We collected data on all of the courses offered at Brigham Young University - Idaho for the specific majors and found the textbooks required for each major. We then researched the cost of those textbooks from the bookstore on campus and compared those with the average starting salaries of those graduates who went into fields of study within their specific majors. Through our research, we found that mechanical engineers typically earn the most money as a starting salary out of all of the majors that we researched. They also have the potential for the greatest salary increase over the years, but they have the greatest cost of textbooks out of all of the majors researched. Out of all of the majors researched, the cost of textbooks was within four percent of the average starting salaries. Some further research that could be conducted would be to research the difference in textbook costs across all universities, equating the cost of tuition into the cost associated with the different majors, and if textbook costs correlate with all majors across the board.

Literature Review

More than half of recent college students are working jobs that don’t require degrees, according to the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. With the average private college costing about $43,289 per year, according to the College Data website, some students may wonder if their education is worth the costs. The average cost of tuition at a four-year university has increased about $7,000 in the last ten years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. According to recent studies, tuition and textbook costs have increased consistently over the past ten years while unemployment rates have increased over the past ten years as well. Research has been done about how graduate’s salaries relate to tuition costs, but no one has yet looked at how textbook costs compare to graduate’s salaries.

The state of Oregon issued a report in 2012 about the trends in textbook affordability throughout the nation. The report stated that over an 18-year period, the cost of textbooks has increased at double the rate of inflation. This makes it even more difficult to justify the costs of textbooks because the costs are increasing faster than the buyers can keep up. At four-year public universities, the annual cost of textbooks has increased from $817 to $988 in a matter of four years. The average cost for textbooks at private colleges last year was $1,244, according to the College Data website. At most universities, the cost of textbooks and supplies are equal to 29 percent of the cost of tuition and fees.

Another study done by the University of Michigan looks at the affordability of textbooks. They stated, “the lack of textbook affordability has drawn increased nationwide attention over the last decade.” They are making an effort to understand why the price of college textbooks has increased at an exponential rate. They organized review boards at the federal, state, and campus levels to conduct a study to “help us better understand the overall context of today’s textbook problem and then to tackle the questions of what choices we have today and what other alternatives, such as open textbooks, we should further consider in order to increase productivity and efficiency of teaching for faculty as well as to provide low-cost instructional materials for students, making education and resources more affordable.”

Universities understand what is happening to textbook prices and want to find a solution to the problem in order to improve the affordability of attending a four-year university. Between December of 1986 and December of 2004, textbook prices have increased by 186 percent, which is at twice the rate of inflation. The University of Michigan has made an effort to understand why the cost of textbooks has increased at such an exponential rate. They found that a new edition of a textbook comes out once every three or four years, whether or not there are any changes made to the actual material in the textbooks. The fact that the textbooks have such short life cycles limits

the student’s ability to reduce the cost by purchasing used textbooks and selling their old textbooks back at the end of the term. New editions of textbooks also tend to cost 50 percent more than used copies of the previous editions. Another thing that contributes to the high cost of textbooks is the fact that most textbooks come with an electronic CD or online code which increases the cost of the textbook and those textbooks cannot be sold back at the end of the term because that code is only good for a one-time use.

The article “Going by the Book” by Peter Taylor looks at the burden textbooks are becoming for college students in Canada. He cites the Academic Vice President of the University of Alberta Student Union saying: “Year after year our surveys of undergraduates tell us textbooks are the single biggest financial barrier to education, after tuition.” He continues to say that he tells incoming students to expect to pay around $1,200 a year for books after tuition. Cheaper, more affordable options have become available over the past couple years with websites that sell used copies and even rentals have become more and more popular on campuses. Taylor mentions that, to help low-income students at the University of Calgary, they are loaned their books for free.

Another trend taking place is cheaper electronic textbooks. Indiana University is actually starting to require e-books for many courses. The university is also starting to include the cost of textbooks in to tuition.The reception of e-books has not been very

successful so far, which prompted Taylor to conclude: “It’s possible students actually prefer to hold a big, expensive textbook in their hands, despite all their protests.”

The study “Faculty Awareness of Textbook Prices,” by Robert Sommer, Marina Estabrook and Karen Horobin, brings forward the awareness that faculty members have of the prices of the textbooks they are requiring students to purchase. They found that the faculty members grossly underestimated the actual cost of their textbooks. They also found that the professors felt the more expensive the textbook, the greater quality of the textbook. But in reality and from talking with bookstore managers at the University of California-Davis and Community Colleges, they found that there is little difference in textbook prices for the same course. Both these findings show the disconnect that faculty members have with the reality of what they are requiring students to provide. They contribute this lack of disconnect to the fact that faculty members really are not impacted by the price of the textbooks and the burden it is on students and the fact that publishers don’t emphasize price of their books but rather content.

It is hard for teachers to truly gage whether or not their students are reading the chapters assigned in the required textbooks for their courses. Depending on the class, many students may not read the textbook, because they can just study of their lecture notes, skim the reading, and or rely on other students’ knowledge. With our

advanced technology today, there are online management software programs that help professors ensure that their students are reading the required textbooks. If a teacher incorporates this type of management program into the course outline, students have to go onto to the program and submit chapter summaries, and brief weekly reports on how they will connect and use the information they have read. Yet, is the extra busy work worth it, and are textbooks necessary for learning?

Also according to Careerbuilder.com almost 25 percent of the companies they surveyed about college graduates and new entry level positions, said they would pay $50,000 a year or more and with half saying they would pay between $30,000 and $49,000 a year to college graduates who earned a degree in their specific feild. This survey shows that there is money to be earned after graduation and that salaries are increasing at entry level positions. For example, is the economy is slowly rebounding, engineers have cause to celebrate because for the second year in a row their salaries have increased, according to Design News.

With all this research that has been done about textbooks, ranging from the rising cost, to the overall way students and faculty feel about their effectiveness and how salaries for entry-level graduates continue to increase, we understand that textbooks are a huge financial burden on students but at the same time graduates are making more coming out

of college than ever before. Therefore, the meta-question for this paper is: Is it worth it in the long run to pay for a college education? This meta-question leads to the following five research questions:

1. How do the post-graduation salaries for our different chosen majors compare to each other?

2. How much do students spend on textbooks for their degree specific courses?

3. How do the number of required courses compare to the number of required textbooks for each Major?

4. For each major, what is the average textbook price and median price? How do these two numbers compare within each major?

5. How much of one’s first annual salary go towards paying off textbook debt?

MethodsIn our research of textbook costs in relation to the income of people with Bachelor’s Degrees after college, we mainly used online resources to gather all of the data. The majors researched were journalism, mechanical engineering, nursing, and accounting. We were trying to find whether or not the cost of textbooks are worth it in the long run

textbooks from our list because we assumed that if students needed the same textbook for multiple classes, they would hold onto those textbooks until they had completed all of the classes that those textbooks were required for. We also did not include textbooks that were listed for the courses but were not required, we only included required textbooks in our study of textbook prices. We then searched the bookstore online to find the costs of those textbooks. We did not include rental or used prices in our study, we only looked at the price for new textbooks. Our reasoning behind this was the fact that prices of used textbooks vary so much depending on where the student attends school or where they purchase their textbook. Something that was also thought about is that not all students are able to purchase used textbooks because there are usually limited quantities of those textbooks available. Also, not all textbooks are available to rent.

We created an excel spreadsheet to keep all of our information in an organized format. We listed all of the majors in the far left column, the list of all of the major classes required in the next column, a list of all of the textbooks required for the individual classes listed in the next column, and the cost of all the individual textbooks listed in the next column. In the next column we added up the costs of all of the textbooks in each major.

We then created a seperate spreadsheet and listed all of the majors we had researched. In the next column over and under each

compared to the amount of money that these students will be making after they graduate from college. The Brigham Young University – Idaho website was the resource used for the classes required for each major, textbooks required for each required course, and the cost of each textbooks for each of those majors. The information about the salaries came from salary.com, and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. None of the information needed was gathered from individuals.

The independent variables in this study are the cost of textbooks for a specific major and the starting salary of those who graduated with a major leading to that job.

To begin our research, we went to the Brigham Young University – Idaho bookstore to find and gather any resources that we could use to give the information needed to effectively conduct the research to verify our hypothesis. Then we got on to Brigham Young University – Idaho’s website to research the specific majors. We checked the degree audit to find the various majors and the courses required to graduate for each major within the major courses. The general, foundational courses and the textbooks required for those classes were not included in this study. We looked at only the classes required to fulfill the specific major requirements.

We then researched the textbooks required for each of the classes offered for the individual majors. We eliminated duplicate

of the majors, we listed the entry-level job positions that could be gained within each individual major. We stuck with entry-level positions because we wanted to find out if the cost of textbooks would be worth it right off the bat, and because most students loans require students to start paying on theur debt within the first year because intrest will start inquiring. We also wanted to make it more equal and fair because within some majors there were more job opportunities to move up in the business world.

For example, Mechanical Engineering majors and Accounting majors have more various paths that allow them to climb a little bit more in the corporate world than Nursing or Journalism majors. Those majors have a more narrow scope and not as many possibilities in the job market. So we only looked at the starting wages so that we could target the students salaries right after they had graduated from college.

Once we found all of the starting job positions available for each major from salary.com, we found and input the wages for all of those jobs in the next column on the spreadsheet, next to the individual job titles. Then, in another row over and a column underneath the salaries for the individual majors, we averaged the starting salaries for all of the positions that we found.

Then, we compared the cost of the textbooks from all four years to one year’s starting salary in the positions gained after graduate within the student’s area of expertise. We found the percentage of the first year’s salary that was spent on textbooks over the four years of school at Brigham Young University – Idaho. From that research, we determined whether or not the cost of textbooks was worth the salary gained right after graduation if the student obtained a job within their area of study.

Findings

Finding 1: A Mechanical Engineer’s starting salary is double that of a Journalist.

The meta-question is whether or not it is worth it in the long run to pay for a college education. This leads to the question of how post-graduation salaries compare to each other. This is an important question

to ask because people typically want the most for their money, and when students invest in a college education they expect a salary that will be worth the effort. So what type of Bachelor’s Degree profits the most money between the studies of Mechanical Engineering, Journalism, Accounting, and Nursing?

With the meta-question asking whether or not a college education is worth paying for, it is important to know not only how much money students will make after graduation, but also how much money students need to pay in order to complete all their required courses. Focusing on Brigham Young University - Idaho students, tuition is the same for all full-time students. However, the prices and the amounts of required textbooks differ. This leads to the question of how much students spend on textbooks for their degree specific courses compared to the overall average expenses of textbooks.

In order to answer this question, we collected data through the Brigham Young University - Idaho on-line bookstore services. After collecting and analyzing the data shown on Table 2 in the Appendix B, we found that Accounting students spend an average amount of money on their required textbooks.

Finding 2: Accounting students spend an average amount of money on their required textbooks.

In order to answer this question, we collected data from the United States Bureau and Salary.com. After collecting and analyzing the data shown on Table 1 in the Appendix A, Mechanical Engineering Majors are likely to receive the highest entry-level salary their first year out of college with an average salary income being $57,685. Mechanical Engineers can make anywhere between $43,000 to $63,000 for their first year salary.

Graph 1 above shows Nursing is not far behind with an average salary income being $56,046 for their first year salary with the upper end of a first year nursing graduate making around $74,400 and the lower end salary of a first year nursing graduate making around $30,300. Thus, nursing also has a wider range of possible salary amounts compared to Mechanical Engineering.

Accounting comes in third with their first year salary being around $47,842 with a range between $33,000 to $51,000 in possibility, while Journalist rank last with a salary of $28,819. A Mechanical Engineer’s

Graph 1:

salary is double that of a Journalist, with a 100% increase. To put this in perspective, a journalist just starting out would have to work two full-time jobs to compete with an Engineer’s beginning salary.Through this finding, some may argue that spending money on a Journalism Degree would not be worth the price of their college education; that it would be more beneficial to study Engineering, Accounting, or Nursing.

Out of the 4 areas of study we looked at, the average cost of books amongst these majors came to $1,591.50. Graph 2 below shows that the total Accounting textbook price falls close to this average, costing $1,519. Journalism students spend the least on their textbooks at the total cost of $685.72; this is less than half of the average cost. Yet, Nursing and Mechanical Engineer students spend above average for their textbooks. Nursing Majors spend $1,691.29 on all of their textbooks, and Mechanical Engineers spend $2,470. Mechanical Engineers spend 50% more than the average total textbook cost, and Journalist spend 50% less than of the average total textbook cost.

Corollary Finding 2-A: Journalism students spend only a third of the price on their textbooks compared to Mechanical Engineers.

Although we learn through our first finding that journalists make the least amount of money their first year after graduation, they only have to pay half of what the other majors may require in textbook prices. Chart 1 below shows that compared to Mechanical Engineering, Journalist pay less than a third of what Engineers need to pay. Journalist only pay 22% of what Mechanical Engineers pay with the total cost for Journalism textbooks equaling $685.72 and the total cost of Mechanical Engineering textbooks equaling $2,470.

Chart 1:

Graph 2:

Finding 3: Mechanical Engineers have to take the most classes to graduate, but they have the lowest percentage of classes that require books.

In order to answer the meta question, it is also important to know the number of required courses compare to the number of required textbooks for each Major. Some courses do not require any textbooks. So it is interesting to know how many of the required course make you pay for books, while other course cost no additional fee after tuition.

Again, focusing on only the Brigham Young University - Idaho courses and curriculum,we further analyzed the data we collected through the BYU-I on-line bookstore services shown in Table 1, located in the Appendix A.

Finding 4: Mechanical Engineer’s average textbook price and median textbook price show that the textbook prices for this degree are either cheap or expensive, with little variance in between.

Graph 3 above shows that 12 out of the 20 Journalism courses require textbooks, which is only 60%. Graph 4 below further shows that of those 20 courses, none of them require more than one book, while all the other majors have some courses that do require more than one textbook per course. Nursing courses require you to purchase the most textbooks with a total of 22.

Graph 3:

Graph 4:

The total number of required classes for Nursing is 21, so that means Nursing students need to purchase more books than they have classes. Yet, only 61.9% of those classes required textbooks. Thus, Nursing students have the most classes that require more than one textbook. This is mainly due to the course titled Nurs 100, which requires 6 textbooks in total. Nurs 100 is a course most

Through findings 2 and 3, we learned how the total number of textbook prices compared between the different majors, and how the number of required courses related to the number of required textbooks. However, it is also important to distinguish how the average individual textbook price compares between the different majors, and if the median textbook price for each major differs from the average textbook price.

Graph 5 on the next page at the top shows all the prices of the required textbooks amongst all 4 of the majors studied, with a range from $4.25 to $225. Graph 5 also shows that these textbook prices have a consistent increase in price amongst all of the 64 books with an r-squared number of 0.9704. This R2 number tells us how much of a correlation the numbers have with each other, if they have a consistent increase from $4.25 to $225 or not. An R2 number of 0 equals no

freshmen will take, so this comes out to a very expensive 1st year in college for the Nursing students; their textbook costs are not evenly dispersed amongst the 4 semesters it takes to gain a Bachelor’s Degree.

Mechanical Engineer students have to take the most required classes; taking 9 to 10 more classes compared to the other majors. However they have the lowest ratio of books per class with only 46.67% of their classes requiring textbooks. Out of the required accounting classes, 52.38% of those classes require textbooks.

correlation and a number of 1 equals a perfect correlation. So with the R2 number being 0.9704 this means there is a strong correlation or a strong consistency between the different textbook prices. Graph 6 above to the right, shows the consistency of the spread between the increase of the textbook prices like Graph 5 does, however it shows this for each major separately.

Through Graph 7 below, we can see that Mechanical Engineer students pay the most for their textbooks, and so it is fitting that they too would have the highest average price of one textbook. Their average textbook price is $145.32. However, accounting comes in second with the average textbook costing them $116.85, when they came in third for total cost of textbooks discussed in finding 2. Nursing comes in third with an

average of $76.88 and Journalism comes in last, which is no surprise, with an average of $57.14.

All the medians match up with the average prices fairly close, except for Mechanical Engineering. Their average is $145.32, but their median is $189. This, along with Graph 6, shows that the textbook prices for the Mechanical Engineering Degree are either cheap or expensive, with little variance in between. So the students studying this major have to purchase 6 books under $100, but also 9 books which are over $180; with only 2 books in between the range of $100 to $180. This means that Mechanical Engineer Majors have to spend the most on individual textbook prices, which makes sense since they have to pay the most in total for all their books.

Graph 5: Graph 6:

Graph 7:

Note that Chart 3 shows how the salaries for each major compare to each other via percentage, and Chart 4 shows how the total textbook price for each major compare to each other by percentage as well. These charts show the same information and Graphs 1 and 2 on pages 8 and 9, and are included on this page for convince in visual conclusion. Also, note that Table 3 in Appendix C nicely summaries visually, the main findings.

Through the previous 4 findings, we see how the average of salaries compare with each other and how the textbook prices compare with each other, but how do the salaries compare to the textbook prices? Finding 5 explains how much of one’s first annual salary goes towards paying off textbook debt.

The percentage of the average total cost of textbooks from the average graduate’s entry-level salary is around 3.34%. Journalist only spend 2.38% of their salary towards textbooks, which is the lowest percentage. However, Mechanical Engineers spend 4.28% of their salary towards their textbooks, which is the highest percentage. Accounting graduates spend 3.18% on their books, and Nursing graduates spend 3.01% of their salary on textbooks.

Mechanical Engineers get paid the most and they also have the most textbook debt by the time they graduate. Even though this is true, it does not infer that they would have to pay highest percentage of their firsts annual salary towards their textbook debt. However, they do have the highest percentage. Also, Journalists get paid the least but they also have the least to pay towards textbook debt. So as far as salaries go, Mechanical Engineers will make the most, but Journalist will spend the least on their education.

Textbook price totals for each major seem to balance out with the corresponding entry-level salaries. So it depends on how much the student wants to spend in school, or how much they want to make after school.

Finding 5: Journalist may have the lowest salary, but they spend the least amount of their 1st year salary on books.

Chart 2:

Chart 3:

Chart 4:

Discussion of Findings

Through our research, we have found that textbook prices do, in fact, correlate with starting wages of the specific degrees. We found that Mechanical Engineers typically earn the most in their starting wages on average, and spend the most out of any other degree at Brigham Young University - Idaho on textbooks. It has also been found that Journalists spend almost a thousand dollars less on textbooks and make about $30,000 less in their first year of work in their chosen profession.

Out of all of the majors that we researched, the textbook prices and starting wages were about the same distance apart. Meaning, All of the different textbook prices were less than four percent of the average first year’s salary. While students are in school they may spend very different amounts on textbooks, but as we researched we learned that it will be worth it in the long run.

A conclusion that we came to is that if a student looks at the cost of their textbooks, they can typically project how much they will make per-year post graduation.

A suggestion for further research would be to figure out a formula that figures postgraduate income based on the student’s cost of textbooks during school. Another study that could be done is to find out the difference in textbook costs across different universities and finding out what the cost difference is and find out if there’s a difference in starting salaries based on the college or university that the student graduates from.

Through our research we have come to the conclusion that the answer to our meta-question is that it is worth it in the long run

to pay for a college education. Getting a college education opens the doors to allow people to get these degrees and jobs, but the cost of textbooks also equates to less than four percent of their first year’s salary, on average.

We have a few suggestions for further research, some were mentioned above. Another suggestion that we have is finding out which career has the most room for growth in their average yearly salary and seeing if that has any correlation with anything else. For example, the average starting salary for a nursing graduate is somewhere around $50,000 but if that nurse progresses enough in his or her career they can increase their average annual salary by $100,000.

Something that would be good to research would be to find whether salary increase correlates with textbook prices, as well as starting salaries.

Another question that we have is whether tuition plays into the salary of postgraduates in different degrees. An example that we have found for this is that Mechanical Engineers have to take nine to ten more classes than the other majors in our study which would equate to an extra couple of semesters.

Something that we think would be worth researching further would be whether the cost of tuition and books at Brigham Young University - Idaho and an average of all universities would give us a greater view of whether or not the cost of college would be worth the starting salary of individual majors.

Another thing that we think would be worth going into further research for would be specifically for Mechanical Engineering majors. They pay the most for tuition and books out of any of the majors that we studied. Since they end up making the most

money in the long run, we wonder if that really makes up for the fact that they pay the most for tuition and books throughout their time in college as an undergrad.

We wonder if we include the cost of textbooks and tuition, if it will make a difference in whether or not the cost was worth it. We would also like to research further other majors to find whether or not the correlation between textbook prices and starting wages after college graduation is the same as our findings throughout all of the majors offered at Brigham Young University - Idaho.

Another thing that we thought of that might be interesting to look into is how many students need to take out student loans that will need to be paid off after they graduate. Obviously, for Brigham Young University - Idaho would have a little bit of a different outcome from other universities. But we are still interested to find the results from Brigham Young University - Idaho and across the board at other universities as well. We would like to look at the different loans offered for college students and what the average interest there is on those loans. We would like to look into how long it takes students, on average, to pay off those loans. We then would like to compare the average income of postgraduates with the loans that they have to pay off with interest. We wonder how the interest of debt would play into their salary in the first couple of years.

Something that we have talked about already but have not gone into research over that would be really interesting to look into would be how Brigham Young University - Idaho data compares to other universities. We know that Brigham Young University - Idaho has a fairly low cost of tuition, but we are wondering how the tuition and cost of textbooks at other universities compares to the cost of tuition and textbooks at

Brigham Young University - Idaho and then compare those with the average income of postgraduates and how that data compares with the average cost of tuition and textbooks at universities.

Something else that would be worth looking into to make this study more complete would be to go beyond just college. It would be interesting to look at the average salaries of those who graduated high school, got an associates degree, got a bachelors degree, and a higher level degree. It would be interesting to find the average salaries and the amount of money that is spent on each degree on average and find the difference between the wages earned to find which level of education would be the most worth it.

Our research has just begun to scrape the surface of whether or not textbook prices have anything to do with the starting wages of people who get jobs doing what they majored in. Another thing that would be interesting to look into that we haven’t researched up to this point that could potentially change the outcome of our research would be to look at how many people actually get a profession within their chosen degree of study. Our study has been done in the most ideal situation, one where those who graduate with specific degrees actually stick with those degrees after graduation. It would be interesting to find out how many people stick with their particular majors after graduation. If we could find out what most people do after graduation and what specific degree they typically go into, whether or not it actually applies to their specific major. We have learned a lot through our research, but there is a lot of research to do still to have a totally complete study. So far, our findings conclude that textbook prices do correlate with the wages made by students in that major after they graduate from Brigham Young University - Idaho.

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Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C