This report, based on a survey of 1,065 students at 4-year colleges in the United States, presents detailed data on how much students spend on textbooks, how often they buy and how often they rent. In addition, the study looks at who and how often students take classes that provide open access or other low-cost materials and which students forego the purchase or rent of textbooks, even when required. The report also looks at the popularity of used vs new textbooks, and at how satisfied college students are with the current circumstances in textbook pricing and availability. The report also looks at student reaction to textbook licensing plans by academic libraries.

Data in the report is presented in the aggregate and then broken out separately for sixteen different variables including but not limited to: college grades, gender, income level, year of college standing, SAT/ACT scores, regional origin, age, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, college major and other personal variables, and by Carnegie class, enrollment size and public/private status of the survey participants institutions of higher education.