A new bill proposed in the U.S. Senate aims to make college textbooks more affordable.

The Affordable College Textbook Act, which has been proposed by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Al Franken (D-MN), would allow all universities, ranging from community colleges to private institutions, to provide students with textbook content online and free of charge.

It is estimated that in the last decade, the cost of college textbooks has risen about 82 percent, and there is no stabilization in sight, according to an Inquisitr article.

The cost of textbooks constantly fluctuates because textbooks cannot be used over several years, since the information they contain needs to be updated, and there is a cost attached to each updated edition of a textbook, according to Inquisitr.

“When you have an industry that’s been dominated by a few companies, it’s important to reintroduce competition to that market,” said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director of the United States Public Interest Research Group.

Through the Affordable College Textbook Act, colleges and publishers will have different means through which they can recuperate the cost of updating textbooks — without placing a financial burden on students, according to Inquisitr.

The proposed act could potentially save college students about $1 billion a year as a whole, said Ethan Senack, the higher education advocate of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, in an Inquisitr article. If every student in the U.S. had one of their traditionally published books replaced with an open textbook, $1 billion per year could be saved, according to an article from The Huffington Post.

Roger Hailstork, director of the SU Bookstores, said the focus of the bookstore is to present students with as many options as possible to identify and purchase affordable textbooks.

“Fortunately, today’s students are smart, savvy shoppers and know how to leverage technology to their advantage to ensure they’re getting the best price possible,” Hailstork said.

Creating free textbooks would be done through a higher education institution’s completion of a government grant that allows the creation of open textbooks, according to The Huffington Post.

Open textbooks are similar to traditional textbooks in that they are written by faculty and peer-reviewed, but they are published under an open license, according to The Huffington Post. Rather than the publisher having control over how the material is used, the book would be free and open to the public. The digital material would have the ability to be modified to meet an academic institution’s needs.

Mierzwinski, the consumer program director of the United States Public Interest Research Group, said open textbooks are useful in that they offer faculty the ability to customize and to adapt their learning material. Previously, professors were limited because they were not able to adapt textbooks or change them to fit the way they want to teach, he added.

“But with open textbooks they can explore any option, they can customize the book to their specific style, they can adapt the problem and make it more relevant,” Mierzwinski said.

The textbooks can be downloaded and would be available to be printed for $10 to $40, according to The Huffington Post.

“The Affordable College Textbook Act would make purchasing textbooks more affordable and that would certainly be a welcome piece of news for our students,” Hailstork said.

Published on October 21, 2015 at 9:56 pm

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