For the nearly 60,000 students who attend a college or
university in the Pioneer Valley, the cost of college
textbooks is a lesson in calculus.
Once they get the tab for their textbooks, many students
calculate that they can't afford the tuition, the fees
and the cost of their books.
The average college student spends about $900 each year on
textbooks, which is about 30 percent of tuition and fees for
the average full-time student at a Massachusetts community
college, according to the Massachusetts Public Interest
Research Group (MASSPIRG).
And, in some cases, the newly printed edition of a single
textbook can produce sticker shock. A student taking a class
in chemistry at Amherst College, for example, might pay $265
for "Organic Chemistry," a book and workbook.
A bill in the Legislature - co-sponsored by several Western
Massachusetts lawmakers whose districts include one or more
of the region's colleges and universities - would
restrain the rising costs of textbooks.
The bill addresses the practice of bundling, which allows
publishers to package additional materials such as study
guides, CDs and other supplementary aids with the textbook
for a single high price. The additional study tools might be
extremely valuable in some courses, but 65 percent of
professors surveyed by MASSPIRG said they rarely or never
used the add-ons.
One provision of the bill in the Legislature would require
the publishers to offer the textbook as a single purchase,
in addition to the bundled package.
In addition, some professors complain that publishers are
releasing new editions of textbooks every two or three
years. Legislation could also require publishers to provide
an online list of the changes made from the previous edition
and to estimate when the next edition might hit the market
as well as a price list. Professors should have as much
information as reasonably possible when choosing textbooks.
For a college student and his professor, this is a textbook
case in the principles of economics.
