What do assigned books really cost families?
One paperback novel doesn't look expensive. But add up a school year, a family with more than one student, and a whole school, and the numbers get surprisingly big. Here's what the research says, and how we did the math.
How many books are students assigned?
In a 2025 RAND Corporation survey of nearly 1,600 middle and high school English teachers, about 9 in 10 said they assign at least one full book during the school year, and nearly 6 in 10 assign three or more. On average, teachers in those grades assigned about four full books.
That's just English class. Many students also have a summer reading list, and history, science and elective classes sometimes assign whole books too.
What one student pays
We use $14.99 as an average price for an assigned book. Many commonly assigned paperbacks cost about that new, though real prices vary from a few dollars for some classics to more for newer titles.
| Who | Books | Cost at $14.99 each |
|---|---|---|
| One student, one school year | about 4 | about $60 |
| One student, four years of high school | about 16 | about $240 |
| A family with two students, one year | about 8 | about $120 |
For some families that's easy to absorb. For others, it lands in the same month as clothes, shoes, supplies and fees. And a student who needs their own copy to write in, or whose school doesn't have enough class copies, usually has no choice but to buy.
What a whole school spends
The numbers add up fast at the school level. A high school of about 420 students, where each student gets just one book they would otherwise buy, keeps about $6,300 a year in families' pockets. A school of 1,000 students assigned four books each represents about $60,000 worth of books every year.
Here's the part that stands out: schools assign many of the same titles year after year. The copy a senior finished last spring is often exactly the book a junior needs this fall. Too often, it sits on a shelf at home instead.
Across the country
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 15.6 million students were enrolled in grades 9 through 12 at public schools in fall 2023, not counting private schools. If each reads about four assigned books a year, that's roughly 62 million book assignments a year, or about $935 million worth of books at $14.99 each.
Families don't pay all of that. Many schools buy class sets and hand them out, and libraries cover a lot of reading. But it shows how much money moves through assigned reading every year, and how many perfectly good books are already out there in students' homes.
It doesn't stop after high school
According to the National Association of College Stores' Student Watch 2026 report, college students spent an average of $338 on required course materials in 2025–26. That's about half of what students spent in 2007–08, thanks largely to rentals and digital options. Even so, about one in four students skipped getting at least one required material, and that can cost them far more in grades than the book would have.
How families can spend less
- Start early. Libraries, ebooks and free online classics can cover a lot of a reading list. Our guide How to get your required reading books for free walks through nine places to look.
- Check your shelves. Older siblings, cousins and family friends often have the exact books on this year's list.
- Pass it on. When your student is done with a book, give it to the next student who needs it. One copy can help several families over a few years.
How we figured these numbers: books per student come from the RAND survey average of about four full books a year in middle and high school English. The price is our $14.99 average per book, so real savings depend on which books are assigned. The national total multiplies public high school enrollment by four books and $14.99, and doesn't include private schools, middle schools or other classes. All dollar amounts are rounded.
Sources
- RAND Corporation survey of middle and high school English teachers (2025), as reported by Chalkbeat, May 2026.
- National Center for Education Statistics, public school enrollment, fall 2023.
- National Association of College Stores, Student Watch 2026, July 2026.
Keep assigned books moving at your school
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Last updated October 19, 2026.