By Jaclyn Weiner
College students try to find cheap textbooks as prices rise. Courtesy of Wikimedia.
As college students, we all know that the price of textbooks can be outrageous. Fordham students have the opportunity to rent textbooks or buy used textbooks at the school bookstore for a fraction of the price, but in most cases, the costs still cannot be considered cheap.
Even when using resources like Chegg and Amazon to buy used textbooks for a lower price, it still adds up. Schools also have certain texts that can only be bought directly from their bookstores. For example, Fordham’s required Spanish textbooks, “Gente” volumes 1, 2 and 3, are custom editions. They cost about $75.50 used and up to $101.20 new.
From 1977 to 2015, the price of textbooks has risen by 1,041 percent, according to NBC’s review of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. This is over three times the rate of inflation.
In just the past 10 years, the price of textbooks increased by 82 percent. A study conducted by the College Board revealed that the average American student that attends a public two or four-year college spends over $1,200 dollars on textbooks and supplies annually.
The worst part is that spending the money is completely unavoidable. No matter how expensive the textbooks are, they are still required and not being able to afford textbooks can severely affect higher education opportunities. This is particularly detrimental, with higher education becoming increasingly more important.
In 2013, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois proposed a bill called the Affordable College Textbook Act. The bill would have developed a grant program to reduce and eliminate costs of textbooks and educational material, but it failed to gain traction.
The bill was re-introduced on Oct. 8, 2015 by Senator Angus King of Maine, Representative Ruben Hinojosa of Texas and Representative Jared Polis of Colorado.
The Affordable College Textbook Act plans to utilize the benefits of digital technology to create “open textbooks” available online and in print. The online textbooks cost nothing and print textbooks are relatively cheap. This would ensure that academic material could be available online for all to use and share.
While renting books and buying used books can reduce prices, open textbooks would make an even bigger difference. In some cases, they reduce the price of course materials by 80 percent, and in other cases, open textbooks are completely free.
Similar systems were implemented in both the University of Illinois and the University of California Davis. This move was a great success at both universities.
The Affordable College Textbook Act will also make it mandatory for the Government Accountability Office to report the college textbook price trends to Congress.
Grant programs will be created to assist pilot programs to expand the use of open textbooks at colleges and universities. Entities receiving funds will be required by the Affordable Textbook Act to report the effectiveness of the program. Already existing publishing requirements will be improved to make it easier to buy textbooks or other course materials individually rather than in bulk.
There will be obstacles that still need to be overcome in order to implement the Affordable Textbook Act on a national scale. The funds and resources needed for the grant programs, for instance, could be quite exorbitant.
The enforcement of copyright laws may also become an issue when expanding the use of open textbooks. This may cause it to be difficult to come to an agreement, especially in a timely fashion.
Although it may be difficult to implement the Affordable Textbook Act, the support of U.S. senators and representatives, many organizations and the general public may just make it a reality.
Jaclyn Weiner, FCRH ’18, is a communications and media studies major from Wantagh, New York.
