Gov. Kasich to lower textbook costs for Ohio students

By Kiana Duncan, Nicholas Adkins, and Nicole Ciccarelli

Gov. John Kasich has proposed a $300 cap on how much students can be charged for textbooks in his 2018-19 fiscal budget.

“The budget proposal indicates that, beginning in the 2018-19 school year, campuses would be able to charge students up to $300 in their tuition bill for textbooks,” Ohio Department of Higher Education director of communications Jeff Robinson said. “but would have to cover the remaining textbook costs.”

College textbook prices have been rising exponentially in much the same way as tuition costs. According to the Burea of Labor Statistics (BLS), textbook prices increased 1,041 percent from 1977 to 2015.

According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education legislative and public affairs director, Eli Faes, the average costs of textbooks for students in Ohio is $600 a year. The same textbooks would have cost $58 in 1977 according to the BLS report.

The huge increase is not because inflation alone as the inflation rate over that same period was only 308 percent. If textbook costs had grown at a similar rate, the total cost of textbooks for a year would be roughly $180 a year, a difference of $420.

“The recognition of rising costs in higher education for students, particularly with textbooks, prompted this proposal’s inclusion in the executive budget,” Faes said.

The proposal is the latest of Kasich’s proposals that attempt to lower the cost of higher education for students in Ohio. Lowering textbooks was an idea proposed by the Ohio Task Force on Affordability and Efficiency in Higher Education. It was then designed and crafted by staff members of the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

Kasich has also proposed another tuition freeze in his budget, preventing colleges in Ohio from raising tuition rates. The budget also has a proposal that would allow community colleges in Ohio to offer 4-year degrees.

While Kasich has made proposals at a legislative level in attempts to cut college costs, he has also required universities to file reports showing strategies that they are implementing to cut tuition costs and prevent unnecessary spending, themselves.

Many of these proposals were created with the help of the task force.

“The task force is trying to reduce the cost, without hurting the quality of education,” task force member Mark Small said. “We focused on lowering the cost to make education more competitive with other states.”

Ohio has some of the highest costs for higher education in the country. The average cost of tuition and fees in the 2016-17 school year totaled $10,266 in 2016 dollars; the 16th highest of all states according to collegeboard.org.

Kent State’s in-state tuition has increased 215 percent since 1998 according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Ohio State’s tuition has increased by 257 percent. The University of Akron’s has increased by 272 percent.

These increasing amounts have made college unaffordable for many and have caused increasingly more crippling debts for students after graduation. The average debt-per-borrower in Ohio is the 16th highest in the country at $29,391 according to LendEDU.com. Kent State’s average debt-per-borrower is $33,083.

The $600 average referenced by Faes may even be an understatement. According to the BLS, the average cost of textbooks and supplies for a full-time student are closer to $1,200. Senior chemistry major Jack Murphy spent $2,779.64 over his four years of college.

[documentcloud url=”http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3520363-Cost-of-Chemistry-Textbooks.html” responsive=true] Textbook cost for a 4-year chemistry degree.

“Our cheapest text is $171.80 for an organic textbook and that is just one class, and this proposal is absolutely unreasonable,” chemistry professor Dr. Alexander Seed said.

The main argument against the proposal is that simply moving the burden of high textbooks costs from students to schools does not solve the problem of why textbook prices are so high in the first place.

“Someone has to pay for it, and is it going to come from a rise in tuition and the gov. is saying there can’t be any rises in tuition, so it makes no sense,” Seed said.

Governor Kasich has been strongly against tuition rises during his terms Governor. Teachers worry that if the proposal passes and tuition does not rise, the students may suffer in a different way.

“What [Kasich] is saying is there will be an indirect increase in tuition. If he simultaneously is saying that tuition shouldn’t go up then the quality of education must be lowered,” chemistry professor Dr. Paul Sampson said. “You would have to start using books that are free other than books that are good.”

“Both the two-year public community college sector and the four-year public university sector have come out in opposition of this proposal,” Faes said.

With campus bookstores remaining the top place of purchase for textbooks, universities stand to lose a lot in profits with the new cap. The higher the prices of textbooks, the more the universities make from their bookstore contracts.

Many textbooks have now been converted into “bundles” which require students to purchase not only the physical copy of the book, but also a companion workbook or CD. Schools are also starting to require “custom” textbooks. These are textbooks designed for a specific class at a specific school that cannot be purchased from third party sellers. These custom textbooks typically cost more and reduce the abilities of students to buy used versions to cut costs.

Some think that digital textbooks may be the best option to reduce prices.

“The quicker we move things online, the faster this becomes a non-issue,” Small said. “Everything is online today. This is the way it needs to be.”

A textbook for an upper-division math class currently sells for $259.65 at Kent State’s campus bookstore. The same textbook can be purchased in digital format for $93.50.

There are some drawbacks with digital textbooks. Many have licensure limits that only allow students to access the textbook for a year, students do not have the ability to resell digital textbooks like they can physical textbooks, and there are commonly limits on how many pages a student can print from a digital textbook.

“I think everyone outside of the textbook industry would say that textbooks are too expensive,” Sampson said. “Universities need to put pressure on book publishers to make prices reasonable and negotiate with prices.”

While Kasich’s proposal may not solve the problem, it would certainly alleviate some of the burden on students. The hope for students is that a long-term plan will eventually be put into place that will make all costs of college more affordable.

“We feel that this proposal will positively impact students by lowering textbook costs and providing system-wide consistency and predictability for students,” Faes said, “and we hope that it remains as part of the passed version of the budget.”

 

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What each team member contributed…

-Nicole and Kiana both filmed the video, and edited it together.

-Nick wrote the story.

-Nicole, Kiana, and Nick all reached out to sources for the story.

-Kiana reached out to the students for the video, while Nick and Nicole talked to sources from the Ohio board of higher education.

-Nick also made the infographics.