The House of Representatives will vote today on legislation that aims to curtail the rising costs of textbooks at colleges nationwide, according to Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for the House Education and Labor Committee.
The legislation may have a positive impact on students and college bookstores, Cliff Ewert, vice president of media relations at Follett Corporation, the AU Campus Store's supplier, said in an e-mail. This will be especially noticeable when stores "unbundle" products like CDs or materials that raise the overall cost of the textbook, he said, allowing students to potentially sell their books back at 50 percent of the purchase price.
"Students will receive more money for their books, and the bookstore will have the opportunity to buy back more books," Ewert said.
House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., introduced the College Opportunity and Affordability Act in November. The bill would serve as a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the principal law that governs federal student aid.
Tim Beck, a graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he would prefer that financial aid be awarded to students who cannot afford expensive textbooks.
"The bottom line is there needs to be a change," Beck said. "Books are too expensive."
Included in the bill are provisions that would require collegiate publishers to disclose full textbook pricing information to colleges and faculty, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. This includes textbooks' wholesale prices, summaries of content revision and other formats in which the books are available, such as paperback or unbundled.
Colleges would also need to provide textbook information alongside course descriptions in their annual course catalogs, according to The Chronicle.
These provisions would fail to provide students with accurate textbook information because the catalogs are published long before professors decide which textbooks to use, said Richard Hershman, director of government relations for the National Association of College Stores. Publishers might also change the price of textbooks after professors have chosen them, resulting in hidden costs.
"We support getting information into the hands of students so they can shop around," Hershman said. "But we want to make sure that information is accurate."
Stacey Elofir, director of AU's Campus Store, said AU has considered providing low-cost alternatives to buying textbooks, such as offering eBooks or installing a rental system, but she did not mention any specific dates.
"As a company, we are definitely concerned about pricing," she said.
For the past year, the Office of the Registrar's Web site has provided a link to textbook information from the Campus Store next to course offerings listed on the site. The information provided for each course on the bookstore's Web site should be accurate, according to Maralee Csellar, the acting director of AU's Office of Media Relations.
"The Registrar's office and the campus store work together to make sure that information is correct," Csellar said.
Tony Owusu, a junior in the School of Communication, said he has sometimes not bought a textbook because of high costs. He said he has never purchased every book required by professors since he started college.
"To me, the cost of textbooks is a continuous poke in the eye to students of higher education," Owusu said. "For decades, [schools] have been screwing over students ... textbook prices are just another example of that."
Miller's proposal also focuses on reining in expensive tuition increases by requiring college administrators to give specific reasons for tuition hikes. It plans to expedite the financial aid process and ensure that states uphold funding for higher education, making it more accessible to students from low-income families.
"This legislation will ... reduce or eliminate many of the obstacles that prevent fully qualified students from going to college," Miller said in a news release.
Reps. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and Jason Altmire, D-Pa., are expected to propose an additional amendment to the bill today, which would create a textbook rental demonstration program. This amendment would be advisory rather than mandatory. The National Association of College Stores planned to support the amendment, Hershman said.
