IT’S NO SURPRISE to hear that the costs of a college education are always increasing. Given the misguided priorities in Washington and in state capitols, students, parents and even the government are having to shoulder ever more of the burden of higher education.

What is more surprising, and substantially less defensible, is the skyrocketing price of textbooks. A report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in July concluded that in the academic year 2003-2004, “students and their families spent over $6 billion on new and used textbooks.”

Textbook prices have risen at twice the rate of annual inflation during the last two decades, an average of six percent each year since the 1987-1988 academic year. That should be a wake up call for consumers, but probably doesn’t come as a shock to college students.

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