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ISSUES

Affordable Textbooks

 

What's New

CALPIRG representatives recently met with U.S. Department of Education staff to discuss a new website which will help faculty and students get accurate textbook pricing from textbook publishers.

The website is a result of the passage of the CALPIRG-supported  bill HR 4137, the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which required publishers to disclose textbook pricing and to offer textbooks and supplemental material “unbundled.”

HR 4137 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.

The U.S. Department of Education is now drafting guidance to colleges to ensure that they are aware of the new law and have the ability 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. 

 

How You Can Help

We need more students, faculty, and administrators to join the campaign! Sign up here to learn more about how you can make textbooks affordable on your campus.



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