Legislators, students bemoan costly college textbooks

STORRS, Conn. --After shelling out about $400 for textbooks this semester, University of Connecticut freshman Ben March thought he was finished with that expensive task.

On a recent afternoon, however, he returned to the UConn Co-op's bookstore for an accounting textbook and walked out $101 poorer.

"I was trying to not buy it, but I ended up needing it," said March, of Newtown. "The prices are depressing, but you really don't have a choice."

Sticker shock has been a common experience for years at universities throughout Connecticut and nationwide, where government analysts say the price of textbooks has risen at twice the annual inflation rate since 1986.

Some of the more hefty tomes can sell for upward of $200 each, particularly those with illustrations or glossy photos for specialized topics such as medicine and chemistry.

Some state lawmakers and student groups are fighting back, launching petition drives on campuses and proposing new laws in the Connecticut General Assembly.

Legislators this year are considering a bill to require publishers to inform professors of all books available on a particular subject, how long they will remain on the market and the wholesale price they charge to bookstores.

It would also require Connecticut's public colleges and universities to let students buy books in the first week of classes with anticipated financial aid, even if they have not received it yet.

State Rep. Roberta Willis, who is co-chairman of the legislature's higher education committee, said she was fielding complaints from constituents at the same time she was helping her two college-age children buy textbooks.

"It's bad enough when you're paying the tuition and barely making that happen, but then they're on the phone saying, 'I need $150 more for books,'" said Willis, D-Lakeville. "It can be a real financial strain."

The issue extends beyond the initial price of buying textbooks, however.

If the publisher changes editions, students lose their chance to save money by purchasing a used copy. Students who bought the previous edition can recoup little or nothing when they try to sell it back to college bookstores.

Placing legislative mandates on textbook publishers might be easier said than done.

Last year, some Connecticut lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to limit the practice of "bundling," in which publishers prepackage texts with workbooks, multimedia items or other materials. The lawmakers and some college students said buyers should be able to purchase items individually, rather than paying for extra items they do not necessarily want or need.

Some universities and colleges elsewhere have started renting texts to students. None of Connecticut's public colleges and universities have textbook rental programs, but they have adopted several approaches to help students cope with the costs.

At Western Connecticut State University, for example, needy students can get $300 in their first four days of class while awaiting their financial aid.

At UConn, the Co-op's bookstore has a buyback pledge. If a professor belatedly decides to use a text after students were told it was discontinued, the Co-op refunds the difference between the reduced amount that the student received and the amount he or she would have gotten for a regular buyback.

A survey last year of Connecticut's college and university professors found that while they sympathized with students' plight, less than half make a textbook's price one of the main factors in whether to assign it.

But universities hesitate to push their professors about the way they select textbooks, concerned it could impede on the academic freedom that their faculty members expect and zealously guard.

Adam Gaber, vice president of corporate communications for Thomson Learning, said his company already makes its textbook prices available to professors through their sales representatives and Web site.

However, he told Connecticut lawmakers at a recent hearing that it could be difficult to comply with the portion of their proposed law that would require publishers to predict an edition's shelf life.

A number of factors can influence that, including changes in content, teaching methods, current events and new industry standards, he said.

Students and their parents spend more than $6 billion yearly for new and used college textbooks, according to a July 2005 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The study also said students spent an average of $898 each in 2003-04 for textbooks and supplies at four-year universities, and just a few dollars less than that at two-year community colleges.