Students could see relief from the prices of textbooks as early as this month following the release of a report from the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.
The U.S. Department of Education and Reps. David Wu, D-Ore., and Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., commissioned the report, released June 1. The report was a follow up to an earlier report that analyzed the problem of rising textbook prices.
The report, "Turn the Page: Making College Textbooks More Affordable," offers solutions to the problem, which could have a significant effect, said Serena Unrein, Arizona Students' Association executive director.
"[The report] really reconfirmed that textbooks are expensive and they make college less affordable for a lot of students," she said. "The market needs to be restructured so that it's more student centric."
One measure of textbook expenses by the report was in comparison to the rise in prices of other commodities in the country over time.
From 1987 to 2004, textbook expenses at a four-year public college rose 109 percent, while the Consumer Price Index — which measures the average change in prices over time for consumer goods — rose 65 percent.
Now that the federal government is addressing the issue, there's a possibility for long-term solutions, Unrein said.
"If the federal government continues to move forward with this, it could fix the textbook market," she said.
The report comes a little more than a month after a similar report was released by a taskforce of the Arizona Board of Regents — who govern the in-state universities, voting on fees and tuition.
In the 2005 to 2006 school year, the cost of books and supplies for the average ASU student was $948, according to a board report, up from $838 the year before.
The prices rise about 6 percent a year, almost double the rate of inflation.
And when the regents meet June 21 and 22 at NAU, they will vote on solutions to help students with the costs, said Ed Hermes, a student regent.
"In Arizona, we're ahead of the rest," said Hermes, who chaired the regents' textbook taskforce. "In light of the work that the textbook taskforce has been doing, a lot of the things that we want the board to implement, those things are in this [new] report."
When the regents convene, Hermes said the taskforce would recommend passing action measures such as a textbook rental program, encouraging faculty members to turn book orders in on time and promoting e-books.
"Most of the things that we talked about are parallel in [this] study," Hermes said. "It kind of came to the realization that there is no silver bullet to reducing textbook prices."
Reach the reporter at: matthew.g.stone@asu.edu.
