Due to concerns over high textbook prices and a recent report released by student public interest groups nationwide about publishers’ pricing tactics, lawmakers introduced the College Textbook Affordability Act to the California Legislature last week.
Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, introduced SB 832 to provide guidelines to which textbook publishers must adhere in an effort to give professors clear options when selecting textbooks for their classes.
The bill would require publishers to provide professors with a complete list of the products they sell, their wholesale cost and the estimated time the publisher plans on keeping the book on shelves.
“UCLA supports all effort to make the faculty aware of all the textbook options,” said Neil Yamaguchi, Associated Students UCLA Academic Support director. “I think the concept is good; it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.”
MassPIRG, a group in Massachusetts, surveyed 287 professors in the state to find out the concerns the educators had with the textbook industry and the prices it set.
The survey found that professors would like publishers to properly disclose textbook retail prices to them, provide unbundled textbook options, and change editions only when necessary.
Surveyed professors said they were dissatisfied that publishers do not adequately disclose price information to them. For example, professors reported that less than half of the publishers’ Web sites list book prices, and 77 percent of professors said when they meet with sales representatives from the publishing companies, the representatives never volunteer prices.
But while Christian Hellwig, a UCLA economics professor, said he agreed that prices are not always properly disclosed, he does not need the publishers to provide such information.
“I know the price of around what the book will be ““ it will be the low (hundreds),” Hellwig said.
Because undergraduates are a “captive market,” he said he knows that all the economics textbooks are going to be expensive.
Yamaguchi said ASUCLA has not heard many complaints from professors at UCLA about publishers, but said the professors probably direct their complaints to the publishers themselves.
The survey also found that professors would like publishers to provide unbundled alternatives to bundled textbooks, which is a shrink-wrapped package of the textbook with supplemental materials such as solution manuals and CDs. Fifty percent of professors surveyed said they never used the additional materials that came in the bundle
Helen Nguyen, a second-year undeclared student, said she would like the option of purchasing her books unbundled.
“I don’t always use all the materials. It is kind of a waste,” she said. “It’s too expensive ““ you shouldn’t have to buy it together.”
Sarah Dobjensky, CalPIRG student debt alert coordinator, said the organization is concerned that if publishers do provide unbundled options, they do not properly disclose them to the professors.
“Faculty are often unaware that the books come with an unbundled version,” she said.
The organization also found that most professors surveyed did not always believe new editions were necessary. New editions are on average 12 percent more expensive than the edition prior, according to the report.
The book Hellwig uses for his economics class has gone through a recent edition change, but he said he believes it was unnecessary.
“They basically just reshuffled some of the material,” Hellwig said.
He allows his students to use either the old or the new edition of the book.