Thursday, October 21st, is the day when college students across the nation should will join in a national Affordable Textbook Day of Action organized by the Student Public Interest Research Groups (Student PIRGs). This is a great group that helps organize college students to help some solve of the world’s most pressing public interest problems, read more about them here. Their call to action day is to help educated college faculty and students alike about the new federal price disclosure law, Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), and the efforts for open source textbooks, which are free college textbooks available online, and affordable to print out. From the Studen PIRGs website a very useful summary of the bill:
1. Price disclosure. Publishers are required to disclose prices and revision information when marketing textbooks to professors. This law helps counteract the “broken market” at the root of high textbook prices by providing all of the information professors need to identify and consider lower cost options.
2. Unbundling. Ever bought a textbook packaged with a CD or passcode you never used? Thanks to HEOA, publishers now are required to offer all of the items in textbook bundles for sale separately. This gives students freedom to buy what they need and not what they don’t.
3. Textbook lists. The new law also asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks for each course (including ISBNs and prices) during registration. That way, students can plan ahead for the expense, and they have more time to shop around for the best deals.
As always, we here at RentScouter.com, are helping you get the best prices when buying, renting, or selling textbooks or even a CD, DVD, or video game. Now join this movement to help yourself save college cash by making textbooks more affordable.