I just read an article in this week’s Rice News about how our great Openstax project is saving students money on textbooks and I immediately remembered this clipping from the start of fall semester in 1961. I found it years ago and scanned it for no particular reason, a decision which has now turned out very nicely for me.
$54.06 was a pretty good chunk of change in 1961. You don’t want to know what the prices look like these days.
Bonus:
In May 1958, after 5 years at Rice, total out of pocket cost to me was about $6.300. My son spent that much at Rice in about 5 months.
Army ROTC juniors and seniors received ninety cents per day from the gummit in the late 50s for signing up for the final two years of ROTC. Those $27.00 (+ or -) monthly checks were most welcome back then.
$446 in today’s dollars, according to an https://www.usinflationcalculator.com .
I would venture that the textbooks for the equivalent classes would cost a LOT more than $446 now.
I would also venture that it’s not the authors of the recent textbooks that are raking in those dollars.