Students don’t need a federal study to confirm college textbook prices are at an all-time high, all they have to do is take a peek at their book store receipts.

Eleven books recently purchased at the University Book Store cost Megan Schuller, junior in advertising, $350 — and five were used.

“The bookstores are really killing us by jacking up the prices of used books,” Schuller said.

A newly released study by the federal Government Accountability Office found over the past two decades, college textbook prices have increased at twice the rate of inflation, nearly tripling in price from 1986 to 2004.

The report was originally requested by U.S. Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., after learning that many college students were “jumping online and buying textbooks cheaper overseas,” said Congressman Wu’s press secretary Jillian Schoene.

The GAO report indicates the most significant causes for the drastic increases in textbook prices are the growing practice of textbook publishers bundling newly released textbooks with expensive supplemental materials, and limiting students’ opportunities to purchase used copies of books.

Also cited in the federal report as a reason for rising textbook prices is textbook publishers’ practice of releasing frequent new editions and charging customers in the United States more for textbooks that are offered at discounted prices overseas.

Wu has successfully included an amendment in the pending College Access and Opportunity Act of 2005 that asks publishers to provide college textbooks “a la carte” from additional supplements, such as CDs, and also limit the number of revisions textbooks can receive, Schoene said.

Representatives from the college textbook industry say rising prices are the result of a technologically advancing academic market and publishers are merely creating products professors want.

In a recent press release, J. Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at the Association of American Publishers, said textbook publishers are also adapting to new academic technologies such as online homework and quizzes, in an attempt to enhance teaching and learning.

Schoene said the objective of the amendment is to put pressure on publishers and increase public interest about the ever-increasing prices of textbooks.

“Just bringing this situation to light might be enough,” Schoene said.

Hildebrand argues that the findings of the GAO report are inaccurate, as it combines the prices of textbooks with supplies including computers, calculators and lab equipment, inaccurately depicting actual prices of textbooks to college students.

Prices are lower overseas, he said, because the American publishers are competing with local publishers who price the textbooks at a level where students will buy them.

If prices were increased, the loss in sales would drive up prices in the United States, he said.

The only significant factor that makes the cost of books go up is an increase in the price of paper, said John Butler, president of LBC Publishing out of Clinton, Iowa.

“The costs of printing and publishing have remained relatively steady for the past six or seven years,” Butler said.

“The only increase we’ve seen is in UPS shipping costs, which have risen slightly due to increased gas prices.”

There have been no significant increases in printing or publishing costs within the last decade that would warrant textbook prices to rise much at all, Butler said.

“The reason behind increased textbook prices must be from something outside the normal costs of publishing,” he said.