The House of Representatives unanimously passed a measure that would help curb the rising cost of textbooks as the average student spends $900 per year on textbooks – nearly 20 percent of tuition and fees – and textbook prices are rising at approximately four times the rate of inflation.
Senate Bill 365 requires college textbook publishers to provide faculty members or academic departments with a complete list of all the different versions of a particular textbook in a subject area the instructor is teaching. They must also release the price at which the publisher would make the textbook available.
In a recent report investigating the textbook industry, 77 percent of professors stated sales representatives rarely or never volunteered the price of a textbook. Of those professors who directly asked for a price, only 38 percent reported that the sales representative would disclose the price, according to the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group.
Publishers would have to list this information either on their Web sites or by e-mail so that it is accessible to any member of the public.
The bill also requires publishers that sell textbook bundles, shrink-wrapped textbooks with additional materials, to offer each component of the bundle separately to help reduce the cost to students who once had no choice but to purchase the entire bundle. Supplemental course materials such as workbooks, study guides, CD-ROMs, or online course resources, will be offered separately if an instructor or department chooses.
Many textbooks are still useable without the materials, and many add-ons only become extraneous and raise the cost of the textbook. Of the professors surveyed in the OSPIRG report that assigned a bundled book, 50 percent said they used the additional materials often. Additionally, one-third said they either could not assign the book they chose without the bundle or did not know if that option was available.
The bill has already passed the Senate floor once, 17-11, and will head back to the Senate for an approval vote before it can be signed into law by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
-Jason Reed