EDITORIAL – Textbook troubles

Even with many colleges taking progressive actions to assist students in paying tuition -… Even with many colleges taking progressive actions to assist students in paying tuition – Harvard and other Ivy League universities are now promising to discount tuition for middle- and upper-middle-class families – there still remains one cost that students across the country are struggling to afford: college textbooks.

Like tuition, the price of textbooks has risen faster than inflation. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2005 that textbook prices nearly tripled between 1986 and 2004. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, students at Pitt spend, on average, between $600 and $1,000 a year on textbooks and course materials.

With the rising cost of college textbooks virtually out of academia’s control, many professors and students are now finding ways to fight the rising cost of course materials. Hundreds of professors, including two from Pitt, J. James Bono, a doctoral student and teaching fellow in the English department, and Juan Manfredi, a math professor, have signed a statement of intent to use free, online, open-source textbooks whenever academically appropriate. The statement of intent was assembled by the Student Public Interest Research Groups, which will announce today that they have reached 1,000 faculty signatures.

The movement toward utilizing free open-source academic material has been an ongoing trend in academia, with many universities putting course materials online for the public, and the use of this material by other institutions in lieu of requiring that students purchase textbooks is a progressive, if unexpected, byproduct of the trend.

The Student PIRGS are also pushing Congress to address the rising costs of textbooks. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill, the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which is now in conference committee, that would require textbook publishers to provide information on low-cost alternatives to professors and would also crack down on textbook bundling, a packaging method in which multiple course materials are bundled and sold together at a combined price. Even with professors and government officials working to fight rising textbook costs, part of the burden must fall on textbook publishing companies. These companies have a stronghold on professors – and by extension, students – who have limited options in choosing course materials. Without competition, publishers suffer almost no consequences from raising textbook prices and releasing new editions every couple of years.

But with the movement toward utilizing free online open-access textbooks, which range in subject from economics to physical oceanography, textbook publishers might be forced to lower prices or lose out to competition.

The drastic increase in the cost of college textbooks has gone virtually unregulated for far too long. It is now time for students, professors, university administrators and government officials to fight for lower prices for college textbooks. Going to college might be a privilege – but it is a privilege that shouldn’t be limited by costs.