Students Focus Attention on High Textbook Prices

By APRIL MARCISZEWSKI World Staff Writer

During Jackie Price’s first semester at Columbia University in New York, she zipped through spending money from her parents in one shopping spree for textbooks.

She could not believe it, and neither could her parents in Tulsa when she called them to ask for more money to buy food and do laundry.

This semester, she, her parents and her friend John Voith, a senior at Harvard University, started talking about the high cost of college textbooks. On March 14, the Price family gave $200,000 as the lead donation for a book bank for Tulsa Community College students who sign up for the new Tulsa Achieves scholarship.

Price, a freshman, said she hopes the TCC Textbook Trust inspires donors nationwide to set up book banks. That is one goal of a new organization set up by Price and Voith, Students for an Affordable and Valuable Education, at www.saveducation.com.

They are encouraging professors to choose less-expensive textbooks and select books with fewer editions so students can pay used-book prices, they said. They are advocating against kickbacks that professors nationwide reportedly are receiving from publishing companies.

They also want professors to sign ethics statements, saying they will do their best to choose less-expensive books.

Price and Voith met with Oklahoma legislators and Attorney General Drew Edmondson last week to promote laws and efforts to reduce textbook costs.

Edmondson said he suggested they ask for a legislative study, because state officials would need background information before they could write new laws or take other action.

Sen. Susan Paddack, D-Ada, said that after meeting with the students, she was considering a resolution this year stating legislators’ concern about the high cost of textbooks and possibly proposing a law next year.

Keeping college education affordable is important, she said, because Oklahoma needs a better-educated work force.

Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, said college administrators and faculty, not the Legislature, should address textbook issues.

University of Oklahoma Provost Nancy Mergler expects OU to adopt best practices, including choosing textbooks earlier to allow the used-book market to flourish, she said. Professors should also, when possible, allow their students to use one of the latest two editions of textbooks.

Department heads should review textbook orders when the prices are high, Mergler said.

Oklahoma State University professor Bob Darcy said his political science department has a contract with a publishing company to receive $6 for every new U.S. government textbook sold to OSU students. The book has a section customized for OSU. This means students cannot buy used books, nor can they resell their books to bookstores.

“The political science department is basically adding $50 to the student’s cost so they can get $6, and I think that’s insane,” Darcy said.

Most publishers don’t do this, he said, but they cannot compete with the ones that do.

“It’s quickly becoming the norm, because the bad drives out the good,” he said.

“Students, faculty (and) the public should know what’s going on, and every faculty member and every department that selects textbooks should be able to stand up and defend their (textbook) choices.”

April Marciszewski 581-8475

april.marciszewski@tulsaworld.com

Why do the college textbooks cost so much?

Columbia University freshman Jackie Price blames frequent new editions and publishers’ growing habit of “bundling” CDs, workbooks and more with textbooks. Both practices mean students have less of a chance to buy and sell used books.

Bruce Hildebrand with the Association of American Publishers said earlier this year that textbooks don’t become best sellers to the extent other books do, and they’re expensive to produce, with publishers paying hundreds of professors to edit the material for errors. He said the growing number of adjunct professors sometimes need a “course in a box,” and students who are unprepared for college need extra resources to pass their classes.

University of Texas professor Michael H. Granof reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2004 that used books contribute to higher prices because that market requires publishers to make more money off fewer new textbooks.

Average estimated cost:

Of books and supplies for first-time, full-time students at four- year public colleges in 2003-04 was $898 and at two-year public colleges was $886, according to a 2005 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

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