Textbook Costs - Denver Post

The Denver Post recently ran a series of articles on the high costs of text books and student reactions to those costs. This quote is from the article by Howard Pankratz published on October 17th, 2007, Students Rally for Cheaper Books:

Throngs of students on the Auraria campus signed a petition today calling for cheaper textbooks and accountability by book publishers and university faculty that they hope will lessen their financial burden.

The petitions, to be sent to the Colorado legislature, asks legislators to take action this coming session.

"In many ways it — buying books — is like getting a root canal," said Chris Dezember, 39, a theater major at Metropolitan State College. "I spend $500 to $600 a semester on books. It gets costly."

College textbooks are a $6.2 billion industry, according to the National Association of Stores. The College Board estimates that students spent about $940 on books and supplies in the 2006-07 school year, a 30 percent jump in the past five years.

The most recent article (Collegians' book, tuition concerns on same page) quotes students as working towards a legislative solution:

Students from Colorado State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Metro State College and the University of Northern Colorado are already working together to push for legislation that would make textbooks cheaper.

I think most business people would see a legislative solution to high textbook costs as cumbersome and inappropriate. There are many other possible solutions among which is NROC and open source content for at least some courses.

Lisa