A drop in the college-expenses bucket

NPR's Planet Money recently posted an article about the win some/lose some economics of college textbook publishing. The whole thing's worth a read (it's short), but in brief: the cost of textbooks has gone waaaaay up, but the number of textbooks people buy, and how much they pay for them, has gone waaaaay down. The numbers quoted indicate an uncertain future for the publishers, but something—possibly the nearly $80(!!!) I was recently asked to pay for a paperback copy of The Bedford Handbook—tells me they'll be okay in the long run.