Home News U.S. college education could be pricier with textbook merger – Reuters

U.S. college education could be pricier with textbook merger – Reuters

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The skyrocketing cost of a U.S. college education could get even more expensive if two top college textbook companies combine as planned, especially if they succeed in starving off a scrappy competitor: used textbooks.

The proposed merger of textbook publishers McGraw-Hill Education Inc and Cengage Learning Holdings II Inc, announced in May, would reduce the number of major textbook publishers from four to three. McGraw-Hill is owned by Apollo Global Management LLC (APO.N).

Sources close to the two companies say their combined market share is 30% at most. That differs from figures by market research firm Simba Information, which puts Cengage at 22% and McGraw-Hill at 21%, behind leader Pearson with 40% of the market by revenue, and ahead of Wiley at 7%.

U.S. PIRG Education Fund, a consumer advocacy group, is sending a letter to the Justice Department Monday to urge that the deal be blocked, as is a group of consumer advocates, led by Open Markets.

“The merger threatens to consolidate more power in the grasp of a handful of publishers, who have used their enormous market share to drive up prices for consumers over the course of the past few decades,” said the letter signed by PIRG and some three dozen leaders of university student organizations.

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