Svetlana Shkolnikova reports on the exorbitant price of books, which is increasingly making online books a viable option for college students and faculty.
Textbook prices have outpaced inflation 2-to-1 in the past two decades, says a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. They account for 26% of tuition and fees at four-year public universities and nearly three-quarters of costs at community colleges, the GAO says.
In the report, Nicole Allen, director of the Make Textbooks Affordable campaign by Student Public Interest Research Groups, a non-profit student advocacy network that has been urging for open textbooks since 2003, reiterates
The way we’re going to lower prices in the long run is by giving viable options… Right now the publishers have a stronghold on the market. What we’re trying to do is expand the market and instigate a market shift.
…The open textbooks that are out there serve as proof that it is possible to have a high-quality open textbook that is being used in classrooms. … They might just be the thing that will change the textbook industry for the better.
The Make Textbooks Affordable campaign is bent on gathering signatures for an Open Textbook Statement of Intent, which so far has attracted signatures from 1200 professors and faculty in all 50 states.
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