Issue date: 2/19/07 Section: News

Community outreach at UMass Boston (Photo: Mystery Man 2000)

Students filling up classrooms at the beginning of this semester were acutely aware of the rising cost of higher education, but one cost that many tend to overlook became glaringly obvious as they entered the UMass Boston Bookstore.

Joanna Murphy, a current UMB student, dropped $500 buying textbooks for classes including Biology, Statistics and Spanish this semester. With tuition and fees this year at $5,039 this represents a huge part-close to 20 percent for most students-of the cost of higher education at UMass Boston.

In the face of these costs, which have been rising steadily for years, a number of state legislators are supporting a bill that they hope will give students a break. The bill would require publishers to disclose information on the price of their textbooks to professors and would make it illegal to sell textbooks bundled with other materials, such as workbooks and CDs.

"We have a responsibility to make education affordable for students," said Representative Steven Walsh, who filed the bill. "With the cost of higher education continuing to climb, this is one area where the legislature can do a better job in easing students' financial burden. It is a time for Massachusetts to tell publishers their practices need to change."

As with any market, supply and demand set the price at which textbooks will be sold. It is generally agreed that free markets are the most efficient way to distribute goods in a society. Unfortunately for consumers, however, the textbook world operates on a model of imperfect, monopolistic competition.

Because students are not given the choice of what books they need to purchase, but instead are compelled to purchase those which their professors choose, they cannot reject high priced books in favor of cheaper ones, even if quality is consistent. Even if professors look for cheaper books, they often make inefficient choices because publishers regularly attempt to keep professors from finding out the cost of their textbooks.

"Publishers' sales representatives rarely volunteer the price of their books, and it's highly variable whether or not you can find that information on the publishers' websites," Professor Joe LeBlanc, a professor at Northern Essex Community College, said. He is also the president of the Massachusetts Community College Council, representing more than 5000 faculty and staff at Community Colleges in Massachusetts.

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