You thought the rising cost of college tuition was bad? Then check out the rising cost of college textbooks. The American Enterprise Institute's Mark Perry has put together this nifty chart showing the egregious, 812 percent rise in the cost of course materials since 1978, as captured in the Bureau of Labor Statistics's consumer price index data. The price of all those Intro to Sociology and Calculus books have shot up faster than health-care, home prices, and, of course, inflation.