High Costs of College Textbooks Come Under Attack

I'm assigning the digital book version of George C. Edwards, et al., Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy. For the spring semester, I've got the digital package set up through the publisher for about $70.00, and students will also get a loose-leaf version of the hard-copy textbook for $5.00. It'll be just a little more if the students use the campus bookstore.

It's a good deal.

But a lot of professors have their students spending much more than that, and we've seen that controversy at Cal State Fullerton, where the math professor is refusing to assign the department's consensus textbook. It's turned into a lawsuit.

In any case, here's more at the O.C. Register, "Required reading: faculty's pricey textbooks":

It’s been long understood at Fullerton College that faculty cannot make a single cent off any self-created, custom course materials, from books to course packs.

However, roughly two miles away at Cal State University, Fullerton, no such policy exists to keep faculty from doing just that.

Schools across Orange County vary in how they handle faculty authored educational materials -- a touchy topic that exploded in recent weeks into a nationwide debate about academic freedom and soaring textbook costs.

In the region, at least 500 higher-education classes during the most recent school session are taught by faculty members who require students to use their published works, according to a Register analysis of public documents.

Sales of faculty-written materials at these schools could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single semester or quarter, assuming new copies are purchased in each case, based on the Register’s sampling of schools.

The priciest such text at Chapman in the most recent semester was law professor Michael B. Lang’s “Federal Tax Accounting,” which comes with a $206 price tag at the campus bookstore. It can be purchased on Amazon in used condition for about $100.

At Cal State University Long Beach, a new copy of “Language Learning Disabilities in School-Age Children and Adolescents: Some Principles and Applications,” co-written by professor Geraldine P. Wallach, sells for $197 at the campus bookstore. Online, the book can be rented for as low as $17.

“I think you bring upon yourself greater scrutiny when the book is not only expensive, but also happens to be written by a campus faculty member who benefits from its use,” said Meredith Turner, assistant executive director of the California State Student Association.

At least two schools in the county have rules in place to address the topic of faculty-authored course materials. Nationwide, some institutions, such as University of Missouri and Iowa State University, require academic authors to give any royalties back to the school, or to charity.

Cal State Fullerton has no such policy. Last week, the president of the roughly 39,000-student campus stood by the school’s decision to reprimand associate math professor Alain Bourget, who assigned less expensive alternative textbooks instead of a text co-written by the math department chair and vice chair.

Many faculty authors say they assign their books because they are experts in the field and are offering specialized knowledge. The profits argument is overblown, they contend, as typical royalties are meager and academic book advances are rare. The professors’ cut is often 10 percent to 18 percent, according to Stephen Gillen, a media and publishing attorney.

In fact, faculty authors in a class-action case in New York court allege royalty payments have essentially remained flat over the years while textbook prices have ballooned by more than 80 percent in the last 10 years, according to the lawsuit...

I don't have a problem with professors assigning their own textbooks. Actually, it's kind of cool to take a class with a professor who's a major published author.

I do have a problem if those same professors require less senior faculty to use their textbooks for classes offered by their academic department, which is what's happening at Cal State Fullerton. I'd be fighting that tooth and nail if I was dealing with it at my college.

Keep reading, in any case.