Higher education, then, faces the dilemma of a lot of bad press about the financial burdens placed on students who attend college. The larger problem, however, is the debt that many students face after they begin their college careers. The issue of tuition costs and student loan debt interest is germane, but too complicated to be solved here. However, relevant and worth addressing here is one specific part of the problem: textbook costs. Costs associated with
purchasing physical or online textbooks and sometimes access codes are a part of the increasing costs of college, and those costs make it worth considering whether having students purchase a book like the HHH is worth the money students must spend to purchase it.
To put this into perspective, we first need to understand that textbook costs in general are a problem for students. Much like the rising costs of college tuition and the increasing student loan debt articles, the cost of college textbooks is a popular topic in the news. In January of 2018, CBS News reported that “the average cost of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the past 10 years” (Kristof). The costs of textbooks are so high that in some cases, according to Kristof, 65% of students have not purchased a required textbook because it was too expensive. Kristof also notes that, according to the College Board, students
spend an average of over $1200 a year on textbooks. Thus, textbooks are certainly part of the problem of increasing higher education costs for students.
This situation of rising costs of tuition and debt has not gone unnoticed by those in higher education, particularly in the area of book costs and specifically in the state of Georgia. Whether it is out of concern for how colleges are perceived or a genuine concern for students, there are college and system-level decisions being made to address the situation. At the institution where I
work, we are now required to submit whether or not our classes use low- or no-cost textbooks38.
This information is published online along with the listing for the class. To my knowledge, no one has been asked to choose a different book for students because of a “high-cost” textbook, but there is an unspoken pressure to be conscious of the cost of textbooks when faculty are required to label their textbook requirements in this way because the information is available to anyone who looks up the class schedule. Thus, it is possible that providing this information is a way to say to the public, “We are attempting to address concerns about expensive textbooks.”
I asked my Dean about the initiative to address textbook costs, and she told me it is a system-wide effort of the University System of Georgia (USG). The USG began the Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) initiative in 2014 “to promote student success by supporting the
implementation of affordable alternatives to textbooks” (Judy). At Kennesaw State, Andrea Judy wrote this about the initiative: “Since ALG first launched in 2014, all USG-sponsored textbook affordability programs have saved students a total projected 31.3 million dollars in textbook costs, affecting nearly 220,000 students state-wide.” Her article also cites that students typically spend about $1,200 a year on textbooks, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the system is
aware of the problem of the costs associated with textbooks and has implemented the ALG to help combat it. The ALG website confirms this in its description of the initiative,
Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) is a USG initiative to promote student success by supporting the implementation of affordable alternatives to expensive
commercial textbooks, particularly Open Educational Resources (OER) and open
textbooks such as OpenStax Textbooks, which are both free and customizable for
exactly what a faculty member would like to teach within their courses. We also encourage the use of electronic resources made available through GALILEO. This project offers anyone with internet access the opportunity to access many free textbooks on a variety of subjects. The State Legislature has funded this project, so it is clear that the state of Georgia and the USG are doing their part to help combat the problem of high textbook costs. The rest, it seems, is up to individual instructors.
Given the mounting costs associated with attending college as well as the increases in interest on loans as well as the fact that students are spending over $1,000 a year on textbooks, all of us in higher education should carefully consider what materials we ask students to purchase for our classes. That means that choosing a required textbook is no small matter. The book’s contents and costs should be given great consideration before a faculty member lists a textbook as required for a course. One option to faculty members in Georgia, and many other states39, is no-cost textbooks. The state of Georgia, the USG, and the Legislature are offering opportunities for instructors to provide their students with free textbooks in lieu of requiring students to purchase a book from a for-profit publishing company. The ALG website links
instructors to OER, or, free textbooks that have been created by other faculty members, and those
resources are free for student and faculty use. If faculty cannot find a text to fit their needs, they also have the option of applying for an ALG grant and creating their own text. Faculty members who are awarded grants receive a stipend, and they can also apply for extra funding to cover the costs of materials, such as software, needed for the creation of their texts. To be clear, this means that faculty can be financially compensated for taking the time to create a textbook that their students can use for free.
The support that is in place for faculty to access or create their own course materials makes it worth considering why anyone would require a first-year writing student to purchase a
textbook that can cost as much as $120 and has over 40 chapters, particularly when much of what the book covers (at least in the first 30 chapters) is available online for free. The book does not provide first-year students with the material they most need, and the book’s benefits do not outweigh its cost, and this is without saying anything about the ethical and pedagogical issues that will be discussed in the next chapter. However, there are ways to explain why instructors require the text even given all of these compelling opportunities for faculty to use free textbooks. These reasons are important because they, in some cases, illustrate why current-traditional rhetoric still exists. To be clear, I am not conflating CTR and the HHH, though the HHH is a current-traditional text. Instead, I am arguing that both CTR and the HHH appeal to people for similar reasons.