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- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!uknet!pavo.csi.cam.ac.uk!gjm11
- From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
- Newsgroups: sci.math
- Subject: Re: High Prices of Math Books. I am pissed.
- Message-ID: <1993Jan6.221352.18657@infodev.cam.ac.uk>
- Date: 6 Jan 93 22:13:52 GMT
- References: <1idj1gINNhah@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu> <1993Jan6.151149.7824@infodev.cam.ac.uk> <1if88oINN2js@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu>
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- Organization: U of Cambridge, England
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-
- 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]
-