The rapidly rising cost of college has garnered a lot of attention. A portion of that increase is because of the high prices of textbooks.
Sen. Angus King recently introduced legislation aimed at encouraging the creation of open-source college textbooks available online for free and the use of those open-source materials in college classrooms. The Affordable College Textbook Act would set up a competitive grant process to encourage the development and use of those resources.
Already, textbooks companies, like other publishers, are seeing a decline in revenue from printed materials and are producing more digital materials. Students are seeking out digital alternatives on their own, sometimes illegally.
Congressional action could help speed this transition, saving students and their families precious dollars that can be directed to other college expenses. The average student budget for college books and supplies during the last academic year was $1,225, according to the College Board.
The cost of college textbooks rose 82 percent between 2002 and 2012, according to a 2013 Government Accountability Office report. During the same period, overall consumer prices rose 28 percent while college tuition rose 89 percent. The report notes that students have options to cut textbook costs, including buying used books or renting them. Today, digital course materials are more widely available and more commonly used in the classroom.
This leads to a basic question: Do we still need printed textbooks? Not really, an Arizona school district has found. Faced with a rapidly growing student population, the Vail Unified School District, looked for new ways for teachers to collaborate on a curriculum and learning materials that met state standards. The result was a Web-based system for sharing course materials and, as important, connecting teachers who teach similar courses so they can share ideas. Saving money was a secondary benefit. Beyond Textbooks, the result of the Vail district’s efforts, has been adopted by school districts in several western states.
Some colleges are already moving in a similar direction, but adoption of open textbooks and course materials is slow. College students, of course, aren’t waiting for collegiate or government action.
Last year, The Washington Post wrote about the rise of illegal textbook downloading. It cited an unknown blogger at an unknown school complaining about being forced to buy a $200 paperback sociology textbook, which the course’s professor had written. The Tumblr blogger “Children of the Stars” said students were not allowed to buy an older version of the same book for $5. “This is why we download,” the blogger wrote, adding, “Don’t ever, EVER buy the newest edition of a book.” The blog post is followed by a list of websites with pirated books. When the Post story appeared in September 2014, the blog post had 780,942 views. It has since been taken down.
Another website, vocativ.com, followed up on the Children of the Stars post by looking for textbooks for five typical college core courses. Within minutes, they found all the books available for download for free, which remains illegal.
A survey by the Book Industry Study Group found that students and faculty have diverging views on the value of printed textbooks. The survey results, coincidentally, are available for purchase on the industry group’s website.
In a summary of the survey, the industry group reported: “Instructors report much higher levels of assigned textbooks than do students, while the percentage of students who actually purchase their books is lower still, perhaps as students ultimately are the ones to decide whether the value of a ‘required’ textbook justifies the cost.”
The survey also found that e-textbooks, online version of printed books, have failed to catch on.
Perhaps King’s open-source textbook legislation can serve as something of a spark for online textbooks that aren’t simply the same old materials posted online. It’s important that the grant program it sets up focus on both developing resources that can improve teaching and learning and cutting textbook costs.
