New Law May Save You Bundles
House Passes Textbook Cost Act, Senate To Consider
By: Ryan Levinsohn
Posted: 2/15/08
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation last week aimed at making textbooks more affordable.
House Resolution 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act,
passed in the House 354-58 with 17 present or not voting. It now goes
on to the Senate for vote before reaching the White House for final
approval.
The act, which deals with the financial component of higher education,
addresses what many UConn students have been struggling with during
their college career: exorbitant textbook prices.
The issue of lowering textbook prices is so important that UConnPIRG, a
non-profit public advocacy group, has made it one of the group's four
major campaigns.
"On average, a UConn student will pay $450 a semester on textbooks,"
said Kevin Wilhelm, is a 4th-semester economics major and legislative
intern for campus climate UConnPIRG.
The legislation would put new pressures on colleges, universities and
textbook publishers that would result in lower prices for students.
The most prominent component requires that a publisher who sells
textbooks with bundled materials such as CD-ROMs, offer the textbook
and supplemental material as separate items.
"The two big things in the legislation are defining a bundle and
continuing off that and saying that the professors have to know that
what they are getting is a bundle," Wilhelm said. "The research we've
done, we have seen as much as a $30 or $40 difference per textbook with
bundling or without, and on average a $10 or $20 drop."
According to research done by UConnPIRG, only 18 percent of 450 students surveyed found bundled materials to be useful.
Other requirements of textbook publishers would be that they provide
faculty members with information including the price at which the
publisher would make the college textbook available, the copyright
dates of all previous editions, the substantial content revisions from
previous editions, and whether the college textbook or supplemental
material is available in any other format.
Tom Stanton, communications director for McGraw-Hill Education, a
textbook publisher, said the act enforces what McGraw-Hill already
practices.
"One of the objectives of the act is to increase transparency in the
higher education textbook market - a goal we share and support as
well," Stanton said. "The prices of our products are available to all
prospective buyers. In fact, anyone wishing to compare the prices of
new and used textbooks from all publishers need only type the ISBN
number [the barcode on the book] or title of any book into a web search
engine."
Robert Day, an assistant professor of operations and information
management, supports the legislation but does not look at price when
selecting materials for his courses.
"I don't think price is a heavy determinant in my selection, it's
really based on what's the best book for the course," Day said. "The
cost of textbooks, although a significant cost, are low compared to the
price of tuition. I think it's in the student's best interest to suck
it up and buy the textbook and invest in themselves and their education
because it is such a small percentage compared to their tuition."
When it comes to bundling, Day says that he never uses all of the supplemental materials but that it's a valuable asset to have.
"Even if I don't use it for the course the students are welcome to use
the supplemental material," Day said. "I do find there are more
supplemental material then you can ever use so I do accept books with
way too much supplemental material but I use a fair amount of it."
Wilhelm however believes that the new requirements would be welcomed by most professors.
"Obviously to an extent they have to pick the book that they think is
best for the class but at the end of the day when you look at a little
CD that they could cut to help their students save money the professor
would pick that option," Wilhelm said.
The legislation would also require that colleges and universities
provide the textbook required for each course with ISBN number, author,
title, publisher, and copyright date along with the course schedule.
The UConn Co-Op bookstore has already offered this service in the fall
semester but because of technical difficulties could not continue it
for this semester.
"The Co-op is going to be providing that type of information," Co-op
president William Simpson said. "We did that last fall and because of
technical problems couldn't do it this spring but plan to have it
remedied by next fall so we will be providing that information
regardless of the legislation."
If the legislation passes through the Senate and is approved by the
president, students could see the benefits by next semester, according
to Wilhelm.
"We've had bills introduced to the House and Senate before and seeing
the way it made it through the house the way it did, I think it's a
definite possibility it will pass," Wilhelm said. "There is a chance
some of the things could be cut but the important part is the bundling.
I think it has a pretty good chance of passing the Senate."
Contact Ryan Levinsohn at Ryan.Levinsohn@UConn.edu.
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