Congress Studies Textbook Prices

As students across the country continue to cope with rising textbook prices, Congress has stepped in to provide some much needed relief.

Under a bill proposed by the House Education and Labor Committee, publishers would be required to sell unbundled versions of textbooks that are not packaged with DVDs, CDs, or workbooks. Colleges would also have to provide students with advance information on textbook prices, which would give students the opportunity to plan for their expenses for the upcoming semester.

“Textbook prices have far outpaced inflation over the past decade, now costing the average student close to $900 per year,” said Rachel Racusen, spokeswoman for Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the committee. “Making college more affordable and accessible has been a top priority for the Democratic Congress and the House Education and Labor Committee.”

Colleges would also have to provide information about enrollment to bookstores so that they can make better informed purchases in advance.

Some have criticized the proposed measure, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, saying that it may dissuade students from enrolling in courses which traditionally have higher textbooks costs, like science courses.

But Racusen said that the bill intended to provide students with adequate information to better plan for upcoming semester costs.

Racusen said the measure would enable students “to make the most cost-effective decisions when purchasing their textbooks...and would provide students with more choices when buying textbooks.”

Rising textbook prices have remained a lightning rod of criticism for undergraduates. Last year, students from the Crimson Reading Web site—which allows students to compare textbook prices online for selected courses—had a run-in with the Coop when staff members called the police on them for refusing to leave while copying down ISBN numbers.

Crimson Reading Director Jon T. Staff V ’10 welcomed the committee’s actions, saying they were a positive step towards reducing textbook prices.

“I think that anything they can do to try to lower the cost of textbook students is worth the effort,” he said. “Just trying to get information out there about how to go about finding cheaper textbooks, I think that’s very important.”

Staff added that he believed that a proposal in the bill to create textbook rental programs would make “a huge difference” in how students make their purchases.

Coop President Jerry P. Murphy ’73 and other administrators at the bookstore did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The proposed bill falls in a pattern of legislation aimed at reducing the cost of college for students.

Last year, the House passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which provided students with an additional $20 billion in federal college aid over the next five years, according to Racusen.

—Staff writer Kevin Zhou can be reached at kzhou@fas.harvard.edu.