Featured Article

Professors in Connecticut and Massachusetts are among more than one thousand college faculty in the country to sign onto a petition supporting affordable textbooks.

According to a study by the Government Accountability Office, textbooks cost college students an average of $900 per year. The Student Public Interest Research Groups say the cost equates to a quarter of tuition at a public university, three-quarters of tuition at a community college.

Student PIRGS have been working to spread the word on campuses that there are alternatives to requiring students to buy pricey books each semester.

Nicole Allen with ConnPIRG says one option is open source textbooks or online sources that are reviewed by academics.

"The reason we are looking at open textbooks in particular is that they're basically the same thing as the really expensive commercial textbooks except they are free and open. So more professors are considering them and putting them on the table alongside other commercial textbooks."

Allen says publishers withhold textbook prices from faculty and inflate prices by rolling out new editions every three years, undermining the used book market.

There's movement in Congress to curtail these practices.

The U.S House version of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act would require publishers to tell professors what textbooks cost and inform faculty about lower cost formats if available.