Textbook Costs at BCC: A College Council subcommittee report -
April 2006
Introduction:
On October 3, 2005 Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Ann Marie Murray distributed a memorandum to campus faculty addressing “textbook considerations.”
In the memorandum she draws attention to the financing of a community college education and adds “in addition to tuition and fees, the cost of textbook is becoming a material factor in the total cost for students.” College Council is called upon to “identify policies and procedures to determine solutions to help lower the final cost to students.”
This summary report highlights the activities to date of the College Council’s newly formed Textbook Advisory Committee and shares some research findings.
Three constituent groups:
- Students: They are resourceful and find alternatives through a variety of approaches; sometimes they skip purchases altogether. They would like to have online access
to bookstore information and prices and buying opportunities.
- Faculty: Sometimes they need to be reminded and/or educated about how their actions
contribute to the bookstore’s ability to control textbook costs. Faculty can
communicate with their publisher sales representatives, and they can say no to
publisher offerings that do not meet the needs of our students. Alternate
publishing methods such as custom published course packs can be considered
where appropriate.
- Bookstore: Bookstores do not influence the publishers' offerings as much as faculty
have the potential to do. There are different types of bookstores. At BCC the
bookstore is a not-for-profit auxiliary service organization operated by the
Faculty-Student Association. Revenues stay on campus to benefit the college.
The ‘B.C. Center,’ a licensed child care service, is one entity on campus that
benefits from bookstore sales.
Textbook Advisory Committee activities:
The Textbook Advisory Committee attempts to understand the realities of the constituent groups and how they manage. The committee recognizes the value of learning what other schools do to keep textbook costs down. Jaclyn Wood, a student at Binghamton University was guest speaker at the Feb. 17th subcommittee meeting. She shared her experience with the university’s online marketplace, Bearcatx.com, where students can find used books for sale. Created by the computer science department at the Watson School, Bearcatx was later given help from the School of Management and the American Marketing Association. Targeted to the Binghamton University community, BCC students are welcome to use it.
Jaclyn offered other insights on the student’s viewpoint. She cited the social networking that is a byproduct of the Bearcatx website. Students meet each other through the website, and get anecdotal information about a course or instructor. Students shop in different ways. Freshmen tend to use the bookstore more, for example. Whether a student has a car or not can determine shopping preferences. Lindsay Roberts, a student at BCC, is on our committee and continues to offer the student perspective. She liked the Bearcatx model and wondered if the Student Assembly at BCC could take on a similar project.
The textbook committee read a variety of reports to help shine a light on the contributing factors of high cost of textbooks. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) July 2005 report, College Textbooks; Enhanced Offerings Appear to Drive Recent Price Increases offers an excellent study. It reviews data and includes perspectives from publishers, retailers and used book wholesalers for a balanced and complete assessment.
The bookstore is represented on our committee by Gary finch, Donna Firenze and Joe Kopyar. They have educated us immensely. As a result of our new understanding, the group put together a flyer and distributed it to faculty. Titled, “Straight Talk about Textbooks: How Faculty Can Save Students Money on Their Textbooks,” the flyer lists six bulleted points or best practices along with important dates. The committee feels this type of information needs to go out to faculty regularly. Going forward, the committee members see the value in creating other educational material. One idea is to educate students. We can highlight the various groups on campus that receive help with every bookstore purchase, the buyback options not available elsewhere, the service, and the convenience of using the college bookstore.
Highlights from Research Findings:
From the GAO 2005 report, “College Textbooks: Enhanced offerings appear to drive recent price increases” (available ERIC: #ED485773):
The cost of textbooks and supplies as a percentage of tuition and fees is higher for
community college students: 72% for 2 year colleges; 26% for 4 year public
institutions. “College textbook prices have risen at twice the rate of annual
inflation over the last two decades...” (p.2)
The “increasing costs associated with developing products designed to
accompany textbooks, such as CD-ROMs and other instructional
supplements, best explain price increases in recent years.” Furthermore, this trend
“effectively limits the students’ ability to purchase less expensive used books.”
(p.3)
Frequent revisions of textbooks limit the opportunity students have to reduce their
costs by purchasing used textbooks and selling their textbooks back to the book
stores at the end of the term.
From the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges 1997 report, “Textbook Pricing Policies and Student Access” (available ERIC: #ED 414962):
“Factors determined to affect the price of textbooks include publisher production
costs and profit margins, faculty textbook adoption practices, bookstore
management, and input from local academic senate and student government.”
The report suggested that the local academic senate should …”create a shared
governance bookstore committee that includes students and faculty, and
investigate the effect of book prices on student success. Recommendations to
faculty include careful decision-making in selecting texts, and applying textbook
adoption practices in order to diminish costs.” (abstract)
It was suggested that scholarships or book loans might be used;
putting texts on reserve in the library; using custom texts (p.9)
Some schools have a “two-year textbook adoption rule” that prevents faculty
from ordering new editions of a title every year. This is to increase the availability
of used texts.
*From an email discussion between two committee members, Donna Firenze and Beverly Long |
