ABSTRACT
One of the major financial demands on undergraduate students is the need to buy standardized materials for their classes, particularly course packets and textbooks. The prices of textbooks increased by 186% from 1986–2005, with students paying an average of $898 for two semesters of books at four-year public universities (US Government Accountability Office, 2005). Two major reasons for these high prices are the publishers’ use of “bundling” the textbook with supplemental instructional materials and the frequent revision cycles of texts.
