When you can buy the latest best-seller in hardcover for less than $20 and you remember getting textbooks for free in high school, it's tough to swallow a $150 price tag on a college textbook.

"That's the universal comment from most students — the sticker shock," said Randy Tanaka, director of the University of Hawai'i's bookstores. "It used to be rare that you could find a textbook that was $50. Now we've got a lot of textbooks that are $100 or more."

As students head back to school in the next several weeks, the topic of textbook costs is sure to take center stage with each visit to a college bookstore. Typically, students will be forking over $300 to $400 or more on this semester's textbooks.

The average new textbook cost $52.36 in 2004, according to the National Association of College Stores. Textbook prices rose at twice the rate of inflation over the past two decades, according to a Congressional Budget Office study last year. Prices have nearly tripled since 1988, the study said.

"I'll be spending a lot of money," said Katrina Shaffer, 31, leafing through a $150 calculus book on the Manoa campus this week. "Hopefully less than $500."

Publishers are pushing prices up too fast, according to some student government groups, consumer interest groups and state lawmakers.

Student governments on at least 23 campuses, including the universities of Kansas, Washington and Arizona, have passed resolutions asking for less costly textbooks, according to the Web site www.maketextbooksaffordable.com.

In the past two years legislatures in several Mainland states have looked into sales tax exemptions on textbook purchases and their resolutions ask publishers to find ways to reduce costs for students.

BOOK SUPPLEMENTS

Critics allege that publishers come out with new editions that keep prices high while adding little new material and that almost identical books sold in foreign markets cost a fraction of those offered in the U.S. They also charge that publishers sell books bundled with materials, such as CD-ROMs and online access codes, that raise prices and make it harder to resell used books.

J. Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education of the Association of American Publishers, defended the textbook pricing, saying publishers' costs to develop textbooks are high compared with the number of copies that may be sold.

Criticism that publishers bundle materials to get higher prices isn't warranted, Hildebrand added. Schools are asking for the supplements as they cut back development of their own curriculums and make other cost cuts, he said.

For example, Hildebrand said, a campus that 20 years ago may have had a language laboratory, now relies on publishers to include CD-ROMs with books that feature pronunciation exercises that can be done on a personal computer.

That's not too comforting to Grant Teichman, president of the Associated Students of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

"Textbooks are becoming more unaffordable," said Teichman, a 21-year-old history major.

He said students are looking for ways to pay for textbooks as they cope with a $413 or 22 percent jump in undergraduate tuition and fees at the Manoa campus.

"There doesn't seem to be any relief in sight," he said.

HIGH PRICES

Teichman said book prices will be high on the list of issues the student group takes up this year. He said the group probably will consider a resolution asking publishers to produce cheaper books.

A check of the Manoa bookstore this week found many books under $50, but also books that ran three times that amount.

The fourth edition of "Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing," a requirement of an English 100 course, was priced at $76 for a new hardcover.

History 151 students could look forward to paying $86 for Volume 1 of "Traditions & Encounters, A Global Perspective on the Past."

They also could pay $151 for a Physics 151 book that included access to online materials. "Consumer Behavior," a marketing text, was priced at $147.

The Government Accounting Office report last year noted the supplements appeared to be driving price increases but are designed to enhance the teaching and learning process for instructors and students.

The GAO report said textbook price increases will continue if publishers continue to boost their investments in ancillary products.

"Textbooks are not now, nor have they ever been, a low-cost item," said Hildebrand of the publishers' association.

'A HUGE INVESTMENT'

The GAO report put the cost at $898 annually for textbooks and supplies at four-year schools in a survey two years ago.

"It's like hundreds of dollars," said Jon Chinen, a 21-year-old UH art major. Chinen said he recently saved more than $15 by purchasing some typography textbooks he needed at Amazon .com and getting further savings when he got $30 back for also signing up for the Web store's credit card.

While students can sell back some of their books at the end of the semester, they typically only receive 50 percent or less. Generally, these books then are resold at 75 percent of the new price, said Shellee Heen, manager of Hawai'i Pacific University's bookstore.

"It's a huge investment," Heen said. "I definitely feel for them if they come in and have to shell out $400 for a semester's worth of books."

Reach Greg Wiles at gwiles@honoluluadvertiser.com.