The U.S. House of Representatives created legislation last week that will address the high costs of college textbooks more comprehensively than similar legislation passed in California last month.
The House Committee on Education and Labor unanimously passed the textbook legislation in HR 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, which is part of the Higher Education Act. If the bill is passed in the House, it will be voted on by the Senate.
The legislation mandates that information about textbooks ““ including wholesale prices, prior copyright dates, substantial changes between editions, and the existence and prices of alternative forms ““ be made available to college faculty at all times, putting more responsibility on publishing companies.
The primary difference in the California legislation that was passed, AB 1548, is that it only requires this information to be disclosed if faculty members request it.
“Since the professors aren’t the ones buying the book, they aren’t going to go out of their way to find out the prices,” said Sarah Dobjensky, chairwoman of the UCLA Chapter of the California Public Interest Research Group.
The proposed national legislation is most similar to California’s bill SB 832, which was proposed along with AB 1548, but vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month. Similar to the new national legislation, SB 832 more directly held publishing companies responsible for rising costs of textbooks.
“Basically, the main difference between the bill in the House and the bill that was signed into law in California is that the bill that the House is considering is actually going to do something about the problem,” said Nicole Allen, textbook advocate for CALPIRG.
HR 4137 also requires that items be sold unbundled, meaning that textbooks and any supplemental materials that may accompany the textbook must be available separately.
In addition, the bill includes provisions that would make ISBNs, International Standard Book Numbers, and retail-price information be made available in all online course schedules. This would allow students more time to budget for textbook costs and search for other less-expensive options.
Diana Sfrijan, a third-year English student, said she is most outraged by expensive new editions of textbooks that are released with few substantial changes and believes that addressing this issue will help reduce costs for students.
The California legislation concentrates on three sources that may contribute to high textbook prices: publishers, professors and college bookstores.
The state legislation would require bookstores to disclose their price markups on all textbooks.
Despite this requirement, some believe it still does not address the source of the problem to the extent that the national legislation would, which directly targets the publisher.
“Bookstores are not really at fault because professors have already selected the book. These other provisions don’t address the root of the problem, but could help in an ancillary way.” Allen said.
Also, faculty are prohibited from accepting any compensation in exchange for adopting specific course materials, but some argue that faculty are not to blame. Publishing companies rarely provide information like price that would enable professors to make cost-effective choices.
“Faculty are not at fault because they are trying to make the best decisions for their students based on the content of the book. In studies conducted by CALPIRG, 94 percent of professors say they would have selected the cheaper of two equal books if they had had the information,” Dobjensky said.
“The state legislation is not harmful but (is) also not very helpful. It was a large failure of Gov. Schwarzenegger to not recognize the flaws of the bill he passed. The national bill is going to accomplish what California failed to do, which is address the root of the problem,” Allen said.