The Daily Tar Heel

Issue date: 3/23/07 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: DTH/Jonathan Shrader and Seann Vicente

The rising cost of textbooks has been on the UNC-system agenda for several years, but guidelines adopted last week represent the first mandatory effort to change campus policies.

The system Board of Governors previously has issued soft recommendations and helped coordinate voluntary cost-saving measures, but the new guidelines signal a tougher stance.

Each campus will be required to submit 100 percent of book orders on time and provide a buyback or rental option for texts in large introductory classes. Schools also must calculate book costs for the average student and present that information to the board.

All of those demands have to be met by spring 2008 - a rapid turnaround for such a large initiative.

"It's not just a proposal on a shelf," said Brenda Killingsworth, chairwoman of the UNC-system Faculty Assembly. "I do believe strongly that they will expect and require that we meet that deadline."

Figuring out exactly how to do that will be the job of individual campuses, and debate among faculty, administrators and bookstore operators is likely to prove difficult.

The guidelines provide few specifics about what constitutes an introductory course or how campuses should set up rental or buyback programs. Most faculty are strongly opposed to a system that could limit their book selections for introductory courses, or require them to commit to a book for at least a few years.

"It's not yet clear to me whether we have the ability across all the campuses of the system to implement these things," said Judith Wegner, former chairwoman of UNC-Chapel Hill's Faculty Council, who has followed the issue closely. "I'm afraid that what has developed here is something where the details haven't been worked out."

The job of sorting through the implications of the new policy is just beginning on most campuses, and faculty members across the system will have little time to register their concerns.

"There's going to be a lot of turmoil in the transition," said John Jones, director of Student Stores. "The academic side of the university will have to change more than the bookstores will."

Simply finding a way to get all book orders submitted on time - a practice that can trim costs by allowing Jones and his staff to shop for used texts and offer higher buyback prices - could be a huge challenge.

Hundreds of professors turn in late book orders every semester, sometimes with valid reasons, and the guidelines allow less than a year to achieve perfect compliance rates.

The accelerated pace reflects a combination of student pressure, fatigue with an issue that has been debated for years and a renewed drive for cost efficiency by system President Erskine Bowles, who specifically highlighted textbook costs shortly after taking office in January 2006.

The system already had established a textbook subcommittee to investigate potential cost-saving measures, and the group delivered its nonbinding recommendations in February 2006.

Commenting on those proposals, Bowles said he expected to see real effort on the part of campuses, or else the board would consider withholding campus requests for tuition increases. And he went a step further.

"If we don't see some action in the next year, then I'm going to come back and recommend that we make them requirements," he told board members.

That unexpected comment suggested a significant change in how university administrators would view textbook costs, and that change is borne out in the new guidelines. Asking campuses to report average book costs alongside tuition and fees will allow board members a more thorough look at the overall price of education.

"We're looking at textbooks as part of the entire cost package," BOG Chairman Jim Phillips said.

That overall cost package has been increasing rapidly at campuses across the country. A 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that textbook prices nearly tripled between December 1986 and December 2004, largely because of changing tactics by publishers.

The bundling of supplemental materials and more frequent revisions helped push prices higher, government researchers found.

"Bundling is the first successful tactic we saw that really limited the used book market," Jones said. "The cynical view is that publishers do it specifically for that reason."

Much of the backlash against rising costs has come from student activism, Jones said, and that's certainly the case within the UNC system.

The guidelines issued last week closely mirror a proposal put forward by the UNC-system Association of Student Governments, and university officials gave much of the credit to lobbying by student officials.

"This is something students have been very vocal about, and that makes a difference," Phillips said.



A breakdown of the plan

Strong requirements...

Chancellors will be responsible for getting all faculty to order books on time, and bookstores will have to work with faculty to guarantee buybacks for introductory texts. Few campuses are expected to switch to a rental system, because of high startup costs.

... and ongoing suggestions

System officials want to explore a legislative change to exempt textbooks from sales tax, or create tax holidays at the start of each semester. They also want to explore partnerships between campus bookstores.

Enforcement remains a key question

The new guidelines are directives rather than recommendations, but there is no mention of what happens if campuses don't comply. System President Erskine Bowles suggested that tuition requests could be linked to progress on textbook costs, but there's no explicit statement in the new policy. Asked about the issue, board member Steve Bowden laughed and pointed to Bowles. "We have an enforcement mechanism sitting right there."


In their own words

"Textbook publishers simply know they can swindle U.S. college students, and I think most of us are sick of it."

Dan Cowan

Junior

Business Administration


"This is beyond what we hoped for. It's a big win for students and for the ASG."

Jake Parton

ASG Vice President

Academic, Student Affairs


" I hope that any such plans to institute (a textbook rental) system at UNC will include reasonable levels of compensation for both authors and publishers."

Tom Sorrell

Professor

Chemistry


"It's another way of letting us keep up with the cost to students."

Rob Nelson

Vice President for Finance

UNC system


"Student Stores agrees that textbook prices are too high. We have worked for years to lower costs."

John Jones

Director

Student Stores


"This really came out of the work that (ASG President) Derek (Pantiel) and his group did."

Ginger Burks

Associate VP for Finance

UNC system


"Textbook costs are a huge portion of the cost of higher education, and we've got to drive them down."

Erskine Bowles

UNC-system President


"The board made it pretty clear that this was a priority for us. We want to deal with this issue in a way beneficial to students."

Jim Phillips

BOG Chairman

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