College students have been reducing their class material spending steadily during the last decade. 

According to STATISTA, the average spending in U.S. dollars has decreased approximately 52% since 2007 reaching a low of $339 in 2021-2022 from the peak of $701 spent in 2007.

Data shows that the COVID-19 pandemic increased the average propensity to save of students. While in 2019-2020 the average spending stayed the same as 2017 and 2019, there was a drop of nearly 20% the following years.

Another report by independent research firm Student Monitor displays some reasons that justify the change in the consumer behavior. With their study showing that student spending dropped 22% during the most recent year, coming in at an average of just $314. The report states that this change is in large part because students are tailoring their purchases to the requirements of their individual courses and taking advantage of some of the new affordable options. Some of these include providing high-quality content and courseware within delivery models like Inclusive Access, and print rental in addition to other formats like digital, loose-leaf print, custom solutions and individual learning apps.

On the other hand, the annual survey made by the National Association of College Stores (NACS) found that two-year college students spent more on materials than four-year college students on average.

The cost for all students for the first two years of college is essentially the same, according to Richard Hershman, vice president of government relations at NACS, because they often take comparable compulsory general education courses. According to Hershman, costs for materials are typically cheaper for third- and fourth-year students. They spend, on average, $412 in their third year and $362 in their fourth or fifth year.

NACS survey also reports that digital course material is encouraging students to try diverse ways of learning, the problem is most of those materials are downloaded on the internet and students do not pay for them. The increase of downloaded material is one of the most important reasons for the spending decrease the survey explains.

Kool Ito, a Japanese student at SUNY Oswego majoring in Business Administration and Marketing, said that the reason why he spends less money is he can find different alternatives on the internet for inferior prices.

“Now instead of going to the college bookstore and buying the books, we can just buy the PDFs from the internet, see the different options available and compare prices,” Ito said. “Moreover, there’s loads of people that sell books from past years at a lower price making it more convenient for international students.”

Adam Gagas, adjunct instructor at SUNY Oswego has been teaching Corporate Finance for more than nine years. Gagas is also an investment advisor and financial professional that has worked in the world of finance since 1996. He is a member of the board of directors of Pathfinder Bank, has founded Breakwall Asset Management LLC and is the managing director of Institutional Services in Rockbridge Investment Management.

Gagas believes that one of the reasons for reduction on course expenditure of students is due to the digitalization of sources and materials available. According to Gagas, before the digitalization there was only one retailer, for example the college bookstore that acted as a monopoly in the academic resource market. This meant that the student was the price taker because there was not any other option available in the market.

“There is a bookstore on campus and that was really your only opportunity to get the books for your class,” Gagas said. “You’d go in there and you were the price taker not the price setter and whatever was the price meant you had to pay the settled price and that was it.”

Gagas continued explaining that the digitalization made it easier for competitors to enter the market and that created a competition among the retailers to sell their products. He added that the second-hand market is one of the biggest competitors that broke the college bookstore monopoly offering past editions for much lower prices. The latter, means that the increment of competition has been an actively deflationary force of academic resource pricing.

“Some businesses that started up locally were selling textbooks and second-hand books off campus,” Gagas said. “The books were old editions, but the definition of a book for 23 years has been the same, which means you can still use the 7th edition book even if you are on the 10th one. Profit, in any sort of business model, attracts other people to sell the same product and that will undercut the price and start taking away the opportunity for excessive profit. Somebody’s gonna come along and find a way to do what you do for less price.”

According to Gagas, the new learning methods and offers available that technology has brought to use is the main reason for the decrease of student’s consumption of course materials. The arrival of new competitors offering lower prices has made the market to reduce retailers profit and to increase the consumers surplus, improving the accessibility for academic resources to students from all over the world.

Photo: Abigail Connolly | The Oswegonian