Kalamazoo College Textbook Expense: A Statistical Study

Abstract

Report of a statistical study conducted in June 2004 for Quantitative Methods II. We all know that college is very expensive, especially here at "K," and there are a lot more expenses related to a college education aside from tuition. Expenses range from costly essentials such as food and boarding, to less costly, but just as essential-- textbooks. Textbooks are one area of a Kalamazoo College Student's expenses with a non-negotiable price. Our project seeks to find relationships between the price and number of textbooks within individual majors, major types, and year in school. Which major is the most costly when it comes to textbook price? Which major type (Fine Arts, Foreign Languages, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Social Sciences) is most costly when it comes to textbooks? Which year in school has the highest textbook cost? But, most importantly, we wanted to find out if Kalamazoo students were overpaying for their books by examining average textbook prices from related studies. One additional consideration we examined: Does a student's GPA (indirectly reflective of study habits) have any bearing on major choice, number of books, or average price of books?