Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks, which is 20% of tuition at an average university and half of tuition at a community college! Publishers keep student paying top dollar with new editions, costly bundles and outrageous price tags.
We think that textbooks should be reasonably priced and that used books should be easy to buy and sell. We also think that students should have more cost-saving options, including e-books, paperbacks and unbundled copies.
In 2007, WashPIRG students along with student leaders across the state, spearheaded an effort to help make textbooks affordable for college students. Governor Gregiore signed the country’s second law requiring college textbook publishers to proactively tell faculty the price of all the products they are selling – during the sales conversation. After that, WashPIRG worked with PIRGs in other states to take the law to the federal level.
In July 2008, we celebrated victory when Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which included several key provisions to cut textbook costs. Like the Washington law, it requires publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty. It also requires publishers to offer textbooks "unbundled" from costly supplements like CDs, and asks colleges to give students their textbook assignments early, so they have time to shop around.
Both bills were major blows to the textbook publishers driving up the cost of textbooks. But our work isn’t done.
This spring, we’re taking the fight back to Washington campuses. We’ll be researching just how much of a burdon textbook prices are on our campus by asking students to take part in a survey. We’ll be taking the results national later this spring.
We'll also be fighting for better solutions like open textbooks, which are licensed to be free online and affordable in print. Dozens of these books already exist, and more are on the way. There is even a new for-profit open textbook publisher. Open textbooks mean competition, so we're going to really turning up the heat on publishers by becoming a full-on open textbook marketing force. We'll be telling thousands of professors about open textbooks this spring through email, brochures and face-to-face meetings. Most of them will decide next year's books by the end of the term, so we'll see just how expensive textbooks stack up to a free alternative!
We need your help! Sign up to volunteer to talk to your professors about open textbooks or help us with educational events and survey collection on your campus!
