From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: High Prices of Math Books. I am pissed.
Date: 6 Jan 93 22:13:52 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <1if88oINN2js@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu> hougen@focus.csl.uiuc.edu (Darrell Roy Hougen) writes:

>gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
...
>% So you think it is fair that people from poor families can't go to the
>% best institutions without spending years making money first?
>
>First of all, I should point out that most people that go to college
>are from middle and upper income families so that the huge state and
>federal subsidies of those educational institutions mainly benefit
>middle and upper income students.

So, put means tests of some sort on the grants. Only give them to people
who need them the most.

>Second, educational loans and grants are already available to those
>that need them.  Their adequacy might be debatable but ...

I didn't know that. (I'm in England...) But if they're not adequate,
they should be increased. I understood you to be saying that there
should be no such grants.

>Third, I've seen lots of students sucking down lots of money in the
>form of beer in local bars.  I don't know why other people should be
>forced to subsidize that lifestyle or any other lifestyle for that
>matter.

No one is suggesting that other people be forced to subsidise people's
beer drinking. The suggestion is that they subsidise other people's
education, just like they currently subsidise other people's defence.
I repeat: if someone can afford to spend huge amounts in the bars, they
should not receive so much subsidy.

>I agree that is a shame that educational costs are skyrocketting out
>of sight, but we should try to determine the causes of this phenomenon
>and reverse it rather than just throwing more money at the problem.  I
>am not as familiar with the educational problem as I am with the
>health care problem but it is clear that in the latter case,
>government expenditures and interference in the market place have only
>exacerbated the problem.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that
>government interference has made the problem at least ten times worse.

I agree that "just throwing more money at the problem" is not enough.
It doesn't follow that throwing more money at it is not a good idea.
In the UK there is free healthcare (at some level) for all, and so far
as I know, healthcare in the UK isn't worse than that in (say) the US
where there has been less government intervention.

>If one starts subsidizing textbooks, what is to keep the textbook
>providers from just raising their prices in order to make larger
>profits?  Do you plan to start regulating the publishing industry?
>Government regulated industries are notoriously inefficient and this
>smacks of infringement on the right to free speech.  Why do we need to
>fatten the publisher's bottom line with taxpayer dollars?  One of the
>things that holds book prices down is the fact that some people can't
>afford them.

I haven't been suggesting subsidising textbooks, as it happens; merely
bemoaning the fact that they are so expensive. But I don't think what
you say above is quite right: suppose the government offered some amount
of cash to publishers for every textbook sold with a price less than some
figure or other (with the figure probably depending on things like the
level of the textbook, and things) -- how would this make the publishing
industry less efficient?

>Perhaps we need some competition in the educational market place.  If
>more than one instructor was teaching basically the same class with
>different textbooks, perhaps some students would decide to take the
>cheaper class.  I don't know if this is workable or not but it is an
>idea.

I can't see any sensible way of making this happen. In any case, what
about the cases where there simply isn't a textbook on some particular
area at a sensible price? This does happen; and I can see no way round
it that doesn't involve some sort of intervention from "higher up".

>Another possibility is to bypass the publishers.  As another poster
>was suggesting, we could create a free textbook foundation.  Another
>possibility is to sell copyrights directly to consumers at a low cost.
>So, for example, a student could purchase the right to print out a
>PostScript version of a text for, say, $5, directly from the author.
>To take this a step further, an instructor could obtain the right to
>make X copies of a text for X * $5 directly from the author and could
>then pass the $5 cost on the students in his/her class.

All very well, except that no book publisher is going to be happy about
an author entering into such an agreement, and they'll probably refuse
to publish books on which the author retains that right. And the scheme
you describe probably won't make so much money for the author as the
"usual" way of selling books, what with copying being so much easier;
writing a book is a heck of a lot of effort, and most authors will want
more in return than just the satisfaction of a job well done.

...

>% And it can be done without bankrupting the government; the UK has had
>% such a system for ages, and it has worked all right.
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that a much
>smaller percentage of people go to college in European countries,
>mainly because the European system is different from that in the
>U.S.A.

Yes, a much smaller percentage go to college (at least in the UK; I'm
not sure about the rest of Europe -- I think it varies), but this is
not because they don't have to pay for it! I think (i) there are more
colleges that it's easy to get into and graduate from in the USA,
whereas in the UK pretty well any degree you get will be at a higher
level than most in the USA (this is not intended as criticism, by the
way), and (ii) it's a matter of inertia: in the USA it's expected that
if you've got any brain at all you will go to college.

Personally I think (i) is a problem with the US educational system,
and (ii) a good point; but in any case, I don't think it's the
difference in funding arrangements that makes more people go to
college in the USA.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.num-analysis