Focus should be on fees, not just textbook prices
By Jennifer Mishory
March 11, 2007 9:59 p.m.
Paying $80 for photocopies and $100 for a new, yet-unimproved, edition of this quarter’s economic theory textbook is a real downer.
Which is why the debate regarding high textbook prices is gaining so much ground, and why I have stopped paying those prices.
Both the federal government and state legislative bodies have taken up the issue.
The second of three hearings was held last week in Santa Clarita by the federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Locally, groups such as the California Public Research Interest Group have successfully pushed California legislation for publisher’s transparency regarding textbook prices, and this year, more rigid standards are up for approval.
In Texas, state legislators plan to vote on a tax-free period at the beginning of the academic year to buy textbooks.
There is no doubt that reducing the price of textbooks would alleviate an unnecessary burden on students. I just wonder if the effort toward lowering textbook prices might be better utilized in other areas affecting a student’s ability to pay for college ““ namely, student fees.
According to an oft-cited 2005 Government Accountability Office report, textbook prices have increased at twice the rate of inflation in the past 20 years. The rest of the story is often left uncited ““ that this increase “has followed the trend of tuition increases.”
The number is appalling, but no longer as shocking when looked at in the context of the general price of a college education, which is out of reach for so many people.
Personally, I haven’t stood in Ackerman Union’s long textbook lines for over two years.
Instead, I have discovered the wonders of Web sites such as Half.com and eBay. I have browsed the rows of the used bookstore in Westwood and have made use of our library reserves. For my course readers, I have come to the realization that oftentimes I have easy, legal access through the numerous library databases to the articles contained within these popular yet overpriced teaching tools.
I have yet to find a similar way to avoid giving out my credit-card number on the 20th of a month that student fees are due.
But my hunch was that, like many things, avoiding costs isn’t as easy for all students.
I talked to Allison Bamberg, public relations chair for the UCLA Neuroscience Undergraduate Society.
“It depends on the class, sometimes the book comes with software, … so you have to buy it new,” she said.
Sometimes you can find it used, sometimes you can’t, she said.
Certainly, this fight against unnecessary prices is valid.
But there will always be a balance on tough issues between fixing what can be fixed and fixing what should be fixed.
Maybe we finally have found something that we can fix. But let’s not allow our state legislators and the U.S. Department of Education stray from a focus on the most important ways they can increase affordability, such as lowering public-loan rates and spending more money to subsidize student fees at state schools.
With reports from Bruin wire services. E-mail Mishory at [email protected].
