This year’s spending on textbooks and other course materials represents a 26 percent fall from the previous year, when students spent $456, or $53 per course. It’s the lowest spending in fifteen years, the report notes. And it’s part of a steady decline in spending on course materials since the 2007-08 school year, when students were coughing up $701 on course materials. Spending on technology shot up during the pandemic’s forced switch to remote learning. And it stayed high last year when the average student plunked down $700 on technology. That includes laptop purchases by first-year students—which increases tech spending threefold compared to later college years.
