Washington
Congressional staff members pelted publishing-company officials with questions about the high costs of college textbooks and asserted that the publishers did not have students’ best interests in mind during a briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
But the publishers said they offer professors hundreds of books to choose from for a specific subject, varying in cost from only $30 to upwards of $100, and in some cases even let the professor purchase certain chapters of a book that will not be wholly used.
“We’re working on legislation right now to clear up this exact issue, make things more transparent, and get more information about pricing from the publishers to the students,” said Carlton L. Morris, a legislative correspondent for Rep. Julia Carson, Democrat of Indiana.
Mr. Morris accused publishing companies and professors of not taking costs into account when choosing textbooks for students. Officials from the seven companies present said that, in fact, the cost of books is one of professors’ top concerns.
The publishers had gathered at the informational meeting for Congressional staff members to speak about their newest educational technologies and the various alternatives they offer professors and students. Another purpose of the meeting, held by the Association of American Publishers, was to defend both the effectiveness and the cost of those products.
A 2005 study from the Government Accountability Office said that textbook prices had risen at twice the rate of inflation over the previous 20 years, mostly because of supplementary items, like computer software, that come bundled with the books. A full-time student at a four-year college spent an estimated $900 on textbooks in 2003-4, the study found.
The publishers’ association, however, estimates that students spend $644 a year on textbooks, which accounts for an average of less than 5 percent of their higher-education costs.
At Tuesday’s briefing, a spokesman for one of the publishers, Thomson, explained programs his company offers that can hold prices down by allowing students and professors to choose the format in which they purchase textbooks. Giving students the option to buy loose-leaf versions or e-books, or even specific chapters of books for as little as $1.99, can save them hundreds of dollars by the end of an academic year, he said.
A spokesman from Pearson Education, which offers similar choices, pointed to its online programs, such as MyMathLab, which he said were not only more affordable but also recognized students’ strengths and weaknesses, giving them the necessary drilling to achieve higher success rates.
But the Congressional staff members at the meeting, many of whom are still in college or had recently graduated, complained of having no option but to buy full-price textbooks, because new editions were published too frequently, and also of not being able to sell books back at the end of semesters.
The publishing companies acknowledged that new editions come out every three to four years on average, saying that in most cases it was necessary to update the information in the books. But they said the publishers had no part in buying books back, a process that is facilitated through individual institutions.
Still, the promises regarding new online resources and technologies were met with apprehension from some staff members. “I think math should be taught on a chalkboard with an abacus if you have to,” said Howard W. Myones, a student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who is working as a Congressional intern this summer. Being taught through online tutorials instead of in the classroom “takes away from the learning experience,” he said.
Background articles from The Chronicle: