Affordable Higher Education News

Despite heavy opposition from the major textbook publishers, the College Textbook Affordability Act, SB 832 (Corbett), sponsored by CALPIRG, passed out of the Assembly Higher Education Committee on a 6-1 vote and now heads to the Assembly Floor.

“There’s no question that we need to lower the high costs of college textbooks,” said Emily Rusch, CALPIRG Advocate. “We should start by helping professors avoid assigning textbooks to their students with rip-off prices.”

Textbook costs are skyrocketing for students. Students already struggling to afford the rising costs of college are increasingly burdened by expensive books, which cost the average student $900 a year. That's equal to roughly 20 percent of tuition and fees at a four year college, and 43 percent of the tuition and fees at a two year school.

SB 832 was developed in response to the findings of a PIRG survey of 287 professors. Our survey results, published in our report Exposing the Textbooks Industry, uncovered that textbook publishers are not disclosing price information clearly to faculty, resulting in many faculty assigning textbooks for their classes without knowing what the books will cost their students.

*  23 percent of faculty said that textbook publishers’ websites are easy to use.

*  77 percent of faculty said that textbook marketing representatives rarely or never volunteer the price of their books.

*  Even when professors asked directly for the price in a sales meeting, only 38 percent of the professors said they always got an answer.

*  As a result, only 63 percent of faculty surveyed told us that they usually know the price of the books they assign.

SB 832 requires publishers to disclose the price of their products in the marketing materials and on their website so that faculty can make informed decisions about the books they assign to students. “With the rising costs associated with going to college, students and parents could really use a break, and the committee members should be applauded for recognizing that and taking a concrete step to ease the burden of high textbook costs.” Said Christine Pham, CALPIRG Textbooks coordinator at UC Davis

Other supporters of the legislation include the Chancellor, Faculty Association, and League of California Community Colleges, the CSU Academic Senate, the UC Student Association, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the California Teachers Association, and numerous other student groups, faculty members, and individual colleges. Similar legislation recently passed in Connecticut, Washington, and Oregon.

CALPIRG is a statewide non-profit, non-partisan organization that stands up to powerful interests. CALPIRG is the sponsor of this bill and has worked with Sen. Scott as the sponsor for the past two years. More can be learned at www.calpirg.org.