Textbook Affordability
Problem:
Everyone knows that textbooks are expensive. But exactly why are textbooks so expensive and what can be done about it? Last year, CALPIRG launched an investigation into the problem, conducting a study of the most widely purchased textbooks and the faculty that teach them at ten universities in California and Oregon. Our report found the following:
- Textbooks are Expensive and Getting Even More Expensive
- Textbook Publishers Add Bells and Whistles that Inflate the Price of Textbooks, While Most Faculty Do Not Use These Materials
- Textbook Publishers Put New Editions on the Market Frequently – Often With Very Few Content Changes – Making the Less Expensive, Used Textbooks Obsolete and Unavailable
Solution
The report recommended that publishers and universities adopt the following practices:
- Textbooks Should Be Priced and Sold at a Reasonable Price
- Publishers should keep the cost of producing their books as low as possible without sacrificing educational content.
- Faculty should have the option to order ancillary items separately from textbooks.
- Publishers should fully and proactively disclose to faculty all of their products and prices, and the length of time the publisher intends to keep its products on the market.
- Publishers should pass cost-savings from online textbooks onto students.
- Faculty should give preference to least cost textbook options when the educational content is similar.
There Should be a Vibrant Used Book Market
- Each textbook edition should be kept on the market as long as possible without sacrificing the educational content. Publishers should give preference to supplements to current editions over producing entirely new editions.
- There should be as many forums for students to purchase many used books as possible. Universities should consider rental programs such as those as several universities in Wisconsin and Illinois and encourage students to consider using online bookswaps.
Our Goal is to Lower the Cost of Textbooks
Our Strategy is to pressure the textbook industry to change through a combination of bad publicity and direct economic pressure from faculty and shareholders. We will do this both by generating pressure on the industry as a whole, and by targeting individual publishers who exhibit bad business practices.
Tactics:
Media:
- We will do a paper release of the first report on 2/1
- We will hold an actual press conference to release the faculty opinion survey on 3/8.
- We will work to generate media on any of our other tactics
Faculty Network
- We will build a network of faculty by asking them to endorse the campaign and join our list-serve to keep up to date
- We will get 50 faculty to endorse the campaign
Institutional Support
- We will work to pass a resolution through MSA and the Faculty senate endorsing the campaign which we will send to the college president and the American association of textbooks manufactures.
- We will ask the University president to sign on (though we won’t put pressure to do so)
Possible further Tactics
- Creative tactic: We will host one event near the end of the semester to keep attention on the issue and generate media attention.
- We will work to increase awareness of and participation in the MSA sponsored on-line book-swap