According to the Wisconsin State Journal, the average UW-Madison student paid $890 for textbooks last year. The General Accounting Office estimated that the annual price of textbooks for the average state university student nationwide is 26 percent of the total cost of tuition and fees. A number of campus entities have proposed solutions to alleviate the textbook problem—herein we analyze a number of these initiatives and their potential to lessen the financial burden on students.
This week a UW task force released a report encouraging students and faculty to collaborate to reduce textbook costs. Next fall semester, the task force will set up Course Guide, a website accessed through the My UW portal to provide course and textbook information. The goal is to make updated course and textbook information available to students two to three weeks before the semester begins.
If enough professors participate in the program, Course Guide will represent a big improvement over the current system, which requires students to go to University Book Store or Underground Textbook Exchange to find their needed books. With two or three weeks to shop around and potentially buy books online or swap with others, students should be able to reduce their overall textbook expenses.
In November, Associated Students of Madison announced a book swap to be held for the spring 2008 semester. As this editorial board said before, we believe this is a well-intentioned plan but one that is fraught with problems.
To name a few, the book swap does not allow for negotiations between buyers and sellers, does not allow students to purchase new books and the success of the book swap is wholly dependent on student participation. If participation in this program is anything like participation in ASM student elections, then the program is doomed. Nevertheless, hopefully the partnership with the Chadbourne Residential College and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences can help lower student costs at the margins.
As a supplement to Course Guide and the ASM textbook exchange, the university and students should follow the example of other state university systems and lobby the state Legislature for assistance. According to the National Association of College Stores, 18 states have exempted textbooks from sales tax. This adds up to an average savings of $50 per student annually. Other states have passed laws encouraging professors to release book lists early or to take price into account while selecting textbooks.
For the past few decades, textbook prices have been rising at twice the rate of inflation. With the rising price of textbooks, combined with significant increases in segregated fees and overall tuition at UW, students are being priced out of a world-class education.
