From a new study by the Southern Regional Education Board (SERB), we learn that a number of states in the southeast have taken steps to control an often overlooked, but rapidly increasing, cost of receiving a college education: The price of textbooks. Unfortunately, Kentucky is not one of those states.
It should be. While students and parents often forget to include buying textbooks when calculating the cost of a college education, the SERB study found that the average student now spends more than $1,000 on books each academic year.
Used textbooks typically cost 25 percent less than new textbooks — if students can find them. But since publishers do not profit from the sale of used books, the West Virginia Statewide Task Force of Textbook Affordability found that publishers frequently revise textbooks — often making only relatively minor changes — in order to force students to buy the latest edition of the book. That also makes it virtually impossible for students who have completed the course to sell their textbooks they no longer need.
Publishers of college textbooks know a cash cow when they see one. By constantly revising their books and selling them to a captive audience — students who sign up for the courses — the money keeps rolling in.
But some states are at least trying to curb the cost of textbooks. Oklahoma requires bookstores to provide textbook cost information to faculty members and staff, who must then consider the least costly options when considering requiring materials for courses. Oklahoma and Tennessee require on-campus bookstores to provide unbundled materials whenever possible, separating textbooks that are often sold with CDs or other related materials, some of which course instructors never use.
Six southeastern states — Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — require that students have access to lists of textbooks distinctive from optional materials. That prevents students from buying materials they will never use.
Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia and West Virginia have approved legislation banning faculty and staff from receiving pay from publishers for using their materials in their courses. Earlier this year, legislation was approved in Georgia, Maryland and North Carolina mandating colleges adopt policies to reduce textbook costs.
As far as we know, textbook costs have never been discussed in the Kentucky General Assembly. They should be. After all, paying $500 or more for books for one semester is just one more financial obstacle to earning a college degree. Kentucky should follow the lead of other states in trying to curb those costs.
Editorials
Not in Kentucky — 05/26/09.
Other states trying to control the osts of college books
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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