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That’s the thing, any mandatory costs (textbooks, meal plans, etc) should be bundled into the standard tuition price. It needs to be bundled into the top line price that people are actually aware of when they’re making their “purchase decision” (where to go to college)

And can pay with a low interest rate loan.

for the next 15 years.

I'd love for this to be a standard across ALL pricing, not just tuition. Any costs that I am required to pay should be put into the base price that is advertised.

The European Union broadly believes in this and to my understanding the situation is broadly 'better' here than in North America.

E.g. If I shop for plane tickets and I see a flight advertised for, say, 92 EUR I know that the price includes all taxes (sales taxes and airport taxes). Credit-card processing fees are (I think) no longer permitted.

It's not a perfect system - there are still the 'optional' extras (hold-bags, seat-bookings, insurance) extras on top of the price (and sometimes dark patterns to make you pay for them).

In a related matter, in the UK (not sure about the EU) there are advertising regulations which cover 'from' prices. I believe here if you advertise a price as 'from XXX' (e.g. 'flights to Berlin from 50 GBP') then at least 10% of the inventory needs to be available at that price. So no having a single seat on a 150 seat plane available at an artificially low price.

You might have chosen the worst example; the US regulations at ticket time are better for the customer.

The US "DOT requires airlines and travel agencies that display ticket prices to advertise the total price that a consumer must pay to purchase a ticket. Wherever an airfare is advertised, such as on a website, in an email, or during the booking process, the fare price must include all applicable government taxes and fees, and any mandatory carrier-imposed surcharges." Furthermore, if you're buying a ticket with an US segment 7 days or more from departure directly from an airline, the airline must typically "allow passengers to cancel their reservation within 24 hours and receive a full refund without a penalty."* This is something not afforded to customers on an intra-Europe flight.

https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...

*They can also offer a 24 hour hold free of charge, but the only airline that I know of that opts for this still allows the 24 hour cancel even after the hold.

That is a report that you can get / ask for - it is known as the cost of attendance. There is still some variation. For example, if you are a local you may not be required to live in the dorms and have a meal plan as a freshman.

Price of Attending an Undergraduate Institution - https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cua

(summary per state) https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_330.20.a...

(by year) https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp

It should be made easier to find, but its not particularly hard to find.

https://financialaid.wisc.edu/cost-of-attendance/

> Your cost of attendance (COA) is an ESTIMATE of the expenses you might encounter while attending UW-Madison. Your COA includes more than just tuition and fees – see below. Most programs’ COAs are based on a full-time, nine-month enrollment period, unless otherwise noted. Although the actual cost of attending UW-Madison varies depending on your particular spending habits, the university bases your financial aid on your estimated COA.

but just like tuition, the overall price seems to be increasing across the (college) board, especially for the prestigious schools. this purchase decision stuff is not working.

As OP notes, though, textbooks aren't mandatory costs. A few classes will actually use the books extensively. Most others will deliver all the information in the lecture, with the textbook being referenced in the syllabus and never talked about again.

I'm an auditory learner who only ever used the books when there were homework problems out of them. I saved a ton of money in college by getting good at guessing which types of classes/professors would actually require the book, and I would not have appreciated seeing the books bundled with tuition.

>Today, clever students can share books, buy used, share electronic copies, or skip the book entirely if they don't think it's necessary.

I went back to college in the early 2010s. Even then it wasn't uncommon for a text book to come with a license code for an online learning module that was both required for classwork and non-transferable.

So yes, I could share the book, buy a used copy, or rip a PDF from an ebook, but that doesn't get me into the online class module that my professor is requiring for class, because that's hosted by the textbook's publisher and I don't get access unless I buy the book new.

I ran into this issue in the most unexpected of classes.

I took some vehicle repair courses as electives and there was an online module despite the majority of class time being spent in a shop environment doing actual work on vehicles.

It was ridiculous.

I spent a lot of time in undergrad researching to find the books cheap online or buy the Indian paperback version that is only hardcover in the US. The oncampus bookstore gave peanuts when you sold it back and some profs were oblivious and would just require the newest version when the older version would work.

There needs to be a minimum amount of content that has materially changed in order to call it a new edition. Moving questions around and adding a word here or there is not cool.

You have a fair point, and that’s that tuition is another item where customers frequently don’t even shop on price. Many students decide on school with only a vague idea of price, some are on scholarship so they don’t pay, some are not that sophisticated with money so they just ignore the price and take out expensive loans for whatever they tell them to pay.

But the main reason why the idea would help is that colleges set tuition based on what they think the market will bear. The actual cost of the books though would be the school’s problem. Administration might actually pressure professors to NOT use custom self-authored editions that cost $200 more. Also, if the books are included, the school would want to buy used ones from any students who didn’t want to keep them, since it would save the school money. So they would be incentivized to tell professors to not switch to the yearly “new edition” which just resizes a few callout boxes each chapter in order to screw up the pagination, and randomly shuffles the exercises.

* note: I’m imagining here that tuition is set to a fixed amount for everyone just as it is today, not that everyone’s tuition is computed custom for them to include the books their particular professors picked.

How about a system like the one dutch highschools use. In that system, the students get the books from school at the start of the year and return them at the end of the year (the school owns the books). That way the books are for sure reused, and the price is reduced.

American high schools use the same model. It's only at university where you are expected to buy your books.

Ah, I didn't know that, well then, if people are already used to this system. Clearly it is the easiest solution then.