Senate passes resolution to help cut textbook costs
Dmitry Sheynin / Staff Writer
Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Page One
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House Resolution 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, was passed by a margin of 7:1, and it brought hopes of cheaper textbooks and transparency from the publishing world.
"Textbooks are extremely expensive," said New Jersey Public Interest and Research Group Student Chapters member, Tatiana Smith, a Rutgers College sophomore. "It's something that needs to be addressed … most students spend between 700 and 900 dollars a year on textbooks."
The new legislation would help remedy the problem through a number of provisions including a requirement for publishers to be up-front with the pricing of textbooks.
"A lot of professors have no clue how much the books are going to cost … because they don't tell them," she said. "[The bill] pretty much says that publishers of textbooks have to put a price tag on the books. That's one thing they haven't been doing."
Smith also criticized publishers' tendencies to include bundled items with textbooks and not offer a cheaper alternative without the extras. Under the new bill, which still must be passed in the Senate, publishers would be forced to treat add-ons like CD-ROMs as supplements - to be purchased on a voluntary basis.
In addition, HR 4137 would make it easier for students to buy and sell used textbooks by discouraging new editions that don't add anything substantive.
"It's a lot of glitz and glamour packaging when it's not necessary," Smith said. "You can learn the same information with one edition."
In 2004 and again in 2005, NJPIRG issued a report called "Ripoff 101" that echoed many of the sentiments expressed by members of Congress last week.
"Textbook publishers increase textbook prices faster than the rate of inflation between editions and charge American students more for the same books than students in other countries," according to the report.