What's New
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.
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.
