Are textbook prices becoming unaffordable for York students? With the average cost of a textbook nearing $100 Cdn, students are accessing their required materials by opting for second-hand copies, sharing resources, or turning to piracy. Two important questions that arise: are students truly engaging with the prescribed texts, and what are the ethical implications of pirating educational content?
The inaugural volume of Excalibur written by Fred Nix and published on Oct. 7, 1966, addressed the issue of unaffordable textbook prices: “Outrageous Prices!” the students say in protest, calling for “a complete boycott of the bookstore.” Further, in the 18th Excalibur volume published on Sept. 29, 1983, writer Gary Symons describes the “bitterness and anger” of York students amid rapid increases in textbook prices. The students accuse the university’s bookstore of charging inflated prices as a means to “take advantage of their virtual monopoly of the local market.”
Now, decades later in 2025, the problem remains unresolved. With textbooks currently averaging around $100, students are turning to other methods of accessing their course materials in lieu of purchasing physical copies.
Students turn to less ethical means amidst soaring textbook prices
Olivia Gallo, a third-year psychology major at York’s Glendon campus, shares that “due to the high cost of textbooks, [her] primary ways of accessing materials for class is through piracy and oftentimes being shared the resources through course groups.” Despite her efforts to rent textbooks from the Glendon library, Gallo finds it difficult to access resources. “The selection of books is not congruent with the class materials most of the time. I usually have to end up finding the materials elsewhere,” she explains.
As a result, almost all of the digital copies Gallo relies on for her classes come from piracy and shared resources, proving to be a challenge for “someone who works better with physical copies of texts.” Consequently, she is less involved with the material: “I am less engaged and […] forget about the readings for class if I do not have a constant physical reminder.”
It is “a battle of staying disciplined,” Gallo says, “more so than if the text were to be physical, as the digital copy can be easily stored away and not thought of.”
To improve her digital learning experience as a student who likes to “physically highlight and make notes in the margins of physical textbooks,” Gallo has invested in an iPad; and despite its additional cost, the device eliminates her reliance on physical copies entirely by allowing her “to write on the textbook pages digitally.” Although her parents are “more than willing to pay” for physical textbooks, Gallo nevertheless feels strongly about the lack of accessibility and financial burden that prevents many students from having the resources they need to succeed academically.
“I almost feel guilty for asking my parents to pay at least $300 per semester, so yes, it does cause stress. I do not believe that we should pay THAT much money for a textbook when we’re already paying thousands of dollars in tuition,” she says.
For self-funded students, Gallo acknowledges “the amount of stress these textbooks cause” if they have no choice but to purchase a physical copy.
Gallo’s methods, alongside her sentiments regarding the unaffordability of textbooks, are shared campus-wide. As a fifth-year student currently enrolled in the linguistics program at York’s Keele campus, Sidney Limnidis’ go-to for accessing required materials is likewise through online pirated files. “Piracy has been my best friend throughout my university career. A conservative estimate would be that it has at least saved me a thousand dollars,” says Limnidis.
If he cannot find anything online, he will resort to sharing resources, stating, “Sometimes I’ll get [files] from a classmate.” That being said, very rarely does Limnidis purchase digital textbooks — only doing so “as an absolute last resort” and if he feels they are “necessary for [his] success in the class.”
The ethical implications of pirating educational content has been considered by Limnidis, in contrast to his younger years, throughout which he “didn’t really think about the fact that [he] was pirating materials.” He remains sympathetic to the belief that “education or research should be accessible to anybody, and not hidden beyond a paywall,” whilst understanding “the need to protect researchers and publishers’ intellectual property rights in order to sustain and incentivize their industry.” However, Limnidis feels that textbooks are too expensive and, despite his ethical convictions, is not willing to “fork over a crisp, golden-brown Robert Borden” when he is “broke enough as a student as it is” — especially for a class he does not fully care about.
The bookstore’s efforts to curb high costs
Both Gallo and Limnidis echo the concerns surrounding increasing textbook costs as raised by York students and members before them who, nearly 60 years ago, brought forth the issue in the first volume of Excalibur. So why haven’t the costs been curbed?
The Director of the York University Bookstore, Printing, and Mailing Services provides helpful insight into the growing problem. Sasa Nestorovic, who has been working at York for 33 years, says, “We will continue to do more and are always looking to improve and reduce the average costs for textbooks for students”.
There are various ways in which the bookstore is mitigating this financial burden. As Nestorovic explains, the Day 1 Digital (D1D) program “has been a driver for reducing prices on course books,” allowing students to access their course texts for half the original price, with the average D1D price being $54.
If a book is not available through D1D, the bookstore will also “source course materials digitally through other means, such as CampusBookstore partnerships,” since ebooks are less expensive than physical copies. If the materials are not available through digital format, the bookstore offers alternate options. Nestorovic states, “We always try to source used books” and “create custom textbooks that include only the necessary chapters” to substantially lower costs whilst “maintaining copyright standards.”
For those seeking physical copies, Nestorovic highlights the “Bookstore Buyback program,” through which students can recoup fees by selling their textbooks to the bookstore at the end of each semester — providing others with low-cost, second-hand books.
The bookstore, therefore, is looking to reduce textbook costs for students — despite former protests recounted in Excalibur during the 1960s and 1980s accusing the bookstore of purposefully inflating prices for economic gain. Whilst textbooks are expensive — and arguably unaffordable for many students — there are major factors contributing to the production cost itself.
According to Nestorovic, “Publishers need to pay copyright fees (licensing) for including excerpts from other works, especially in anthologies or literature books, [which] includes course kits that are put together by Copyright Clearance at Printing Services.” Distribution, storage, staffing, and operational expenses also contribute to the increase in production costs, thereby driving up the price of textbooks. Nestorovic mentions how “many subjects, especially in science and technology, require textbooks to be updated frequently to stay current, leading to new editions and higher prices.” As such, the continuous release of new editions by publishers not only increases prices, but makes it difficult to access older and cheaper versions of those same texts.
The bookstore’s dedicated team has thus implemented many cost-saving measures — from digital alternatives to sourcing used books and buyback programs — but is still met with inflation costs which they must act against accordingly. Past and present students are burdened by the high prices they must endure if they are to succeed in their classes, resorting to ethically ambiguous methods such as piracy and relying on others for shared resources.
Instead of allocating massive funds to unnecessary projects, such as building and expanding entirely new million-dollar campuses/schools, the York administration ought to work towards alleviating the financial strain faced by many of its current students through redirecting their resources — ensuring the students are not suffering as a result of the university’s own mismanaged fiscal operations.
