Consumer Price Index data for college textbooks

[Amy Hofer]

Hi all, this message is cross-posted. I have a question about Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for college textbooks. 

The downloadable tables from BLS that I could find only show annualized percent change, not the index numbers behind the change. ProQuest has the annualized index numbers through 2020, but I'm looking for the number all the way through 2021. I want to show the percent change in the CPI for college textbooks from 2015-17, 2017-19, and 2019-21. 

That will enable me to update the chart below (published at https://openoregon.org/four-years-and-falling/). 

I hope this question is making sense! I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks! 

Amy  

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Amy Hofer (she/her)

Statewide Open Education Program Director

Open Oregon Educational Resources

Schedule a meeting with me

[Nathan Smith]

Amy,

I go to the St Louis FRED for my federal reserve data. Here's the CPI for Educational Books and Supplies: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SEEA

You should be able to modify the output numbers from the "Edit Graph" button. There is an option to show annual percentage change or to index the price to a certain year. You won't get raw numbers, though.

Hope that helps,

Nathan

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Nathan Smith, PhD.
Houston Community College, Philosophy

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[Rich Hershman]

The FRED site only has a different index available that includes K-12 books and supplies.  I've chatted with them in the past about adding the CPI college textbook index as FRED is more user friendly than BLS.  That said BLS has all the data points Amy is asking for and can present 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 12 months etc.  

Remember though the CPI for college textbooks has its limitations:

1.) It is new, primarily print textbooks with some level of digital products that have slowly worked itself into the BLS retail pricing sample. So no secondary market (used), no buyback.  No discounted programs like rental, inclusive access and flat fee programs are factored in.   Interestingly BLS has told me that only the car index includes the secondary market in the CPI. BLS also discounts the car index for technological advances, which reduces their inflation track, versus other government agencies' measurements of car inflation.  

2.) When comparing the tuition and fees index, it's important to understand that the tuition index is discounted -factoring in financial aid to better capture the significant difference between sticker price and discounted net price, while the other two higher education focused indices room and college textbooks do not. 

3.) This seems to confuse a lot of folks -CPI is essentially a new product retail pricing index, which is different from spending and average cost.  

It's a helpful index, as is the PPI for college textbooks, but good evidence that it has overstated inflation over the years, by not accounting for the secondary market and discounting.  Similar issues with the tuition index, which prompted BLS to make changes like factoring in financial aid. 

Rich Hershman

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[Amy Hofer]

Thank you so much Rich and Nathan, and special thanks to Cheryl for writing me off-list with the data that I ended up using, available here: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2021/cost-of-college-tuition-has-remained-stable-since-september-2019.htm

Using the monthly data in the College Textbooks column, I calculated yearly averages for 2015-21, then calculated % change for the bienniums that Oregon uses for everything. I'm pasting below the numbers that I ended up with for CPI, and I'm really looking forward to sharing all my info on the cost of course materials in Oregon community colleges soon (including an update of the chart that looks like the French flag from my first message). 

Thanks again, I appreciate these listserv communities so much!

Amy

	CPI for College Textbooks
2015-17 Change	8.24%
2017-19 Change	-1.41%
2019-21 Change	-0.31%

[jonathan.poritz]

This isn't exactly what you were looking for, Amy, but it reminded me to update the graphs I made -- which show BLS data on textbook prices and CPI -- in the thing I was calling the "Inflation-adjusted Textbook Pain Multiplier", here: https://mathematikoi.net/textbook_pain_multiplier/ .  E.g., it's pretty fascinating to look at the textbook prices over time and compare to the CPI, in recent years:

In particular, I think all of that craziness in the last few years for textbooks is about the impact of the OER movement ... and maybe the commercial publishers' subscription models, too? (Which are themselves a response to OER, I imagine.) The tiny curve up in the CPI graph is the very beginnings of increasing inflation we're starting to see now as US oligarchs seek profits with the excuse of the pandemic and supply chain issues.

best,

Jonathan