Looks like the Hilton Prison watch is technically over – at least in the sense that she would be eating processed food and rocking prison issue clothes instead of the designer wear she's accustomed to. Hopefully, for the sake of her fellow inmates, she remembered to wear underwear.

ANYWAY, a quick hit today, which ties into a lot of things we’ve been talking about lately, including debt and college costs and trying to make it in the post-college world.

Last week a Department of Education report was released showing that the cost of textbooks is skyrocketing, as much as $700 - $1,000 a year on average.

MakeTextbooksAffordable.com gets to the point: College students to Congress: Duh.

The textbook study was suggested by two members of Congress after a 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office showed that textbook costs had almost tripled over the last 20 years – essentially the time between when you or your parents went to college.

Your daily's man in D.C. had a story on the report last Saturday, mentioning that books at the University of Southern Maine typically go for more than $100.

For solutions the report recommends expanding the market for used books, creating book rental programs, using online books, encouraging professors to use books longer and extending financial aid to book purchases.

What’s interesting is that that report acknowledges that prices are driven by the perceived supply and demand cycles (Econ 101 anybody).

Last fall I wrote a column about textbook prices and talked with the director of USM’s bookstore. She said one of the problems is that textbook companies continue to pump out new editions of books, each time adding more frills like study guides and CDs.

Used books always seem to be in short supply. The textbook report recommends using more used books, but notes that this could lead to higher prices for new books.

In their analysis of the report, MakeTextbooksAffordable makes the point that used car sales and consignment stores don’t seem to hurt new car dealers or department stores.

They also point out that one of the problems is a disconnect between students and professors. Faculty make the decisions on what book to buy, but students have to doll out the cash.

To keep tabs on what happens next you can head over to MakeTextbooksAffordable or U.S. PIRG, which has an eye on a lot of financial issues young people face.

So now that we know textbook prices are out of control, what happens next? How disheartening is that to anyone working 40 hours a week to make book money for the fall?

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