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ISSUES

Affordable Textbooks

 

What's New

Last year Congress passed HR 4137, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). Thanks to the efforts of Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, the legislation helps lower the cost of textbooks for millions of students by requiring publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty and requiring publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials "unbundled." It also asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks, including prices, for each course when students are registering for classes. Click here to download the two-page overview of the provisions for affordable textbooks in the legislation.

On February 23, 2009, the US Department of Education began its regulatory process to determine how to implement the HEOA. We are advocating that the Department run a full education campaign to colleges and faculty across the country to ensure they are aware of the new law and have the means to follow it.

 

Additionally, more than 300 faculty have signed a statement circulated by CALPIRG Students, expressing their interest in using free, open resources on the web. Read more about the Student PIRGs work to lower the high cost of textbooks at www.maketextbooksaffordable.org. 

 

Overview

Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks—20 percent of tuition at an average university and half of tuition at a community college. Textbook prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994 and continue to rise.

Our research demonstrates that the rising costs of textbooks is not inevitable, and that policy solutions exist to make textbooks part of an affordable college education. Publishers produce new editions of textbooks every 3 and a half years—even in fields where information hasn’t changed significantly, like math and chemistry. New editions prevent faculty and bookstores from using the old edition.

Publishers also “bundle” lots of extras with their textbooks—CD-ROMs and workbooks that drive up prices and make books harder to resell.

Professors and college administrations can do a lot to to rein in high prices, but Congress should require publishers to curb practices that drive up the cost of a college education.

 

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California Public Interest Research Group
CALPIRG has offices in: Los Angeles - San Francisco - Sacramento
Main Office: 1107 9th St. Suite 601
Sacramento, CA 95814