With rising costs of college attendance, many students struggle to afford textbooks. While renting and buying older editions of required course materials barely remedy costs, a new bill aims to cut costs by 30 percent.
Governor Jerry Brown signed the College Textbook Affordability Act, or AB 798, into legislation on Oct. 8. Authored by District 14 assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, the bill encourages campuses, faculty and staff to incorporate more affordable materials, or Open Education Resources, with its Open Educational Resources Adoption Incentive Program. Open educational resources include anything from modules, textbooks, videos, tests, software and any other tools that are in the public domain or were released under an intellectual property license that permits free use and repurposing.
The $3 million program rewards a minimum of $50,000 to all California State University and Community College campuses, faculty, and staff that participate. In order to participate, campuses must meet two requirements. They must first adopt a resolution that increases student access to OER. Then they must devise a plan, with the help of student and administration alike, that proves their readiness to spend the awarded grant money. The plan must get approved by the Open Educational Resources Council.
On average, students spend $1,200 a year on textbooks, according to CollegeBoard. This may not spell victory for lucrative bookstores, but for 49er Shops it doesn’t affect their mission.
Even before the bill passed, the 49er sought to expand options for students with BeachBookCompare.com, a web feature that offers full transparency in textbook prices, according to 49er Bookstore Director Jared Ceja.
“Fortunately, as a nonprofit organization focused on student success, the University Bookstore will continue to seek accessible options that offer CSULB students the best value possible,” Ceja said.
All profits will continue to fund campus organizations, departmental programs, facilities maintenance, scholarships, and more, said Ceja. The only thing that will change is the store’s redistribution of low-cost OER from print to digital.
The 49er bookstore filters OER content into two categories, “free” and “low-cost.” With free OER content, the only books ordered and sold are “print on demand” options produced through the Campus Copy Center. As for the second option, the 49er will continue to purchase these low cost OER, such as books, course packets and digital access cards, to sell online and on the shelves.
“Ultimately the free version of OER would likely reduce the amount of books we carry while the low-cost version would transition new books into digital and course pack versions,” said Ceja.
The National Association of College Stores reveals that 21.6 cents of every dollar spent on a new textbook goes to the bookstore, whether it’s for operations, personnel costs, or income. After subtracting that and shipping costs, what’s left is 77.4 cents every dollar that ends up with the publisher.
California State Universities and Community College campuses have until the summer of 2016 in order to submit their adoptive resolutions to be reviewed by the OERAIP’s Council. The law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2016.
*Article updated on Oct. 28, 2015
