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One
thousand professors
from over 300 colleges in all 50 states released a statement declaring their preference for high-quality,
affordable textbooks, including open textbooks, over expensive commercial
textbooks. Open textbooks are high quality open-access textbooks reviewed and written by academics that can be used online at no cost and printed for a small cost. Open textbooks are already used at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, like Harvard, Caltech and Yale. Textbooks cost students an average of $900 per year, which is a quarter of tuition at an average four-year public university and nearly three-quarters of tuition at a community college, according to the GAO. Research conducted by The Student PIRGs identifies publisher tactics as the primary cause of escalating prices. Bundling textbooks with unnecessary supplements forces students to purchase items they do not need; unnecessary new editions undermine the used book market; and withholding critical price information keeps faculty in the dark. “As faculty members, our top priority is to choose the textbook that is best for our students. We share concerns about affordability, and face similar frustrations with publisher practices,” said Sandra Schroeder, Chair of the American Federation of Teachers Higher Education Program and Policy Council. “Open textbooks and other affordable options, when appropriate for a course, are a win-win for everyone.” Here are some examples of open textbooks: Introduction to Economic Analysis A First Course in Linear Algebra Introduction to Physical Oceanography Check out a great front-page article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
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CALPIRG chapters released the "Campus Credit Card Trap" report,
which outlined the unfair marketing practices of the credit industry.
Students overwhelmingly support limits on campus credit card marketing,
according to the results of the nationwide USPIRG survey of more than
1500 students at 40 colleges in 14 states. Learn more at: truthaboutcredit.org |
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While many students spent their Spring Breaks in Cancun
or Palm Beach or other exotic locations, CALPIRG
students spent our Spring Break building support for the High-Speed Rail
proposal here in California. We are happy to report it was a
HUGE success. More than 50 students participated in our trip doing 11 events
from Northern California to Southern
California.
High-speed rail would remove up to 92 million car trips off the
road annually, reduce global warming pollution and reduce the need to expand
expensive roads and airports. In order for such a large project to get built, it needs to
be a priority for elected officials and the public. The students’ trip was
crucial to creating needed momentum. Over the course of the week we had 43 media outlets attend our events and met with 23 local leaders. Here are a few photos from the week’s events:
From left to right, top to bottom: UC Berkeley student Jen Engstrom speaks in San Francisco with Senator Migden, Supervisor Peskin, and Judge Kopp; Congresswoman Lofgren speaking at our event in San Jose, with San Jose Mayor Reed in the background; UC Davis student Dan Xie speaking at our Sacramento event with Asm. Ma and Huffman and David Crane from the HSR Authority; all of us in Stockton; Congressman Costa on his bike with students in Fresno; Bakersfield Mayor Hall gets a t-shirt from Davis student Andrew Peake; meeting up with Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa at our LA stop; our final stop in San Diego. Here are a few highlights from the media coverage of the week: Riding for the
Rail, Fresno Bee This is the photo that ran in the Fresno Bee:
We were also excited to see that Assemblymember Ma was sporting our T-shirt at the Democratic State Convention last weekend. CALPIRG, is a statewide public interest organization that stands up to powerful interests. CALPIRG Students consist of student chapters at 8 University of California campuses and USC. At each one of our student chapters we have professional staff of organizers and advocates working with students on campaigns that the students choose. High-speed rail is one of the campaigns the students are prioritizing this spring. |
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Hello
friends,
For More Information:
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For More Information: Events next week in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Riverside, Anaheim, and San Diego What: Fifty students from CALPIRG Students Chapters are spending their spring break traveling the high-speed rail route by car and bike to educate the public about the impending project. At most stops the students are planning a short bike route through each town to actually get to the location of the media event itself. At the media event, not only will speakers be surrounded by the students in matching t-shirts and a giant map of the proposed train route, but a group of students will also be wearing a Chinese dragon style train costume. They’ll be decorating a train car at each stop to represent each city they are traveling through, to provide an additional great visual for media. Event Dates, Times, Locations, and Speakers: San Francisco San Jose Sacramento Stockton Fresno Bakersfield Los
Angeles Anaheim Riverside San Diego
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On December 6th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a 21st Century energy bill that will harness American ingenuity and put us on a path to cleaner, smarter new energy future for America. |
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Despite strong support from the education community and legislators, Governor Schwarzenegger chose to veto the College Textbook Affordability Act. While we are pleased that the Governor acknowledged the importance of lower textbook prices, we are troubled by the reasons he gave for his veto. In his veto message, the Governor said that SB 832 "fails to recognize that the affordability of textbooks is a shared responsibility among publishers, college bookstores, and faculty members." Unfortunately, it appears that the Governor fails to recognize the root cause of the problem at hand. It has been clearly documented many times over that the textbook market is a broken market. The person who orders the book (faculty) is not the same person who buys the book (students). Therefore, the cost of a textbook is not the primary factor during the purchasing process. Publishers, cynically aware of the immense market power this gives them, respond by withholding the price of textbooks. As has now been clearly documented by a rigorous study released by CALPIRG, 77% of faculty report that publishers rarely or never report the price of a book during sales interactions. SB 832 sought to correct this imbalance in the market by requiring publishers to disclose the price of a book to professors up front. This is why the the California Teachers Association, the University of California Student Association, and the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges urged the Governor to sign SB 832. By not doing so, the Governor failed to heed the research and recommendations of the academic community and missed a simple and important opportunity to lower textbook prices. We hope that over time, the Governor rethinks his position and reconsiders similar efforts in the future. For Governor Schwarzenegger's veto message: http://gov.ca.gov/pdf/press/2007bills/SB%20832%20Veto%20Message.pdf
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On September 7th, 2007, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act by broad bipartisan votes of 79 to 12 and 292 to 97 respectively. The bill now goes to the President who has said he will sign the legislation into law. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act is the most meaningful higher education reform in more than 15 years. The bill addresses the financial challenges of access and affordability that face American college students. It provides billions of dollars a year in additional grant aid to low-income students through the Pell Grant program. It will also help students address the burden of rising student debt through lower interest rates and a new repayment system. The bill also trims excessive subsidies that benefit a handful of banks and directs them to millions of students and families who are working to pay for college. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act will:
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Despite heavy opposition from the major textbook publishers, the College Textbook Affordability Act, SB 832 (Corbett), sponsored by CALPIRG, passed out of the Assembly. The bill now needs a simple concurrence vote in the Senate before it heads to the Governor’s desk. “This law will be welcome news to the many students heading back to school right now who are being hit with another hefty bill for textbooks” said Tessa Atkinson-Adams, CALPIRG Textbooks Coordinator and UCSB student. “There is no questions that we need to lower the high costs of college textbooks. We can start by helping professors avoid assigning textbooks to their students with rip-off prices.” Textbook costs are skyrocketing for students. Students already struggling to afford the rising costs of college are increasingly burdened by expensive books, which cost the average student $900 a year. That's equal to roughly 20% of tuition and fees at a four year college, and 43% of the tuition and fees at a two year school. SB 832 was developed in response to the findings of a PIRG survey of 287 professors. Our survey results, published in our report Exposing the Textbooks Industry, uncovered that textbook publishers are not disclosing price information clearly to faculty, resulting in many faculty assigning textbooks for their classes without knowing what the books will cost their students.
SB 832 requires publishers to disclose the price of their products in the marketing materials and on their website so that faculty can make informed decisions about the books they assign to students. Despite the simple requirements of the bill, and the broad support from faculty, bookstores, student groups and others, the publishing companies have been heavily opposed to the legislation. The governor now has a chance to stand up for students and faculty against the special interest publishers by signing the College Textbook Affordability Act into law. Other supporters of the legislation include the Chancellor, Faculty Association, and League of California Community Colleges, the CSU Academic Senate, the UC Student Association, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the California Teachers Association, and numerous other student groups, faculty members, and individual colleges. Similar legislation recently passed in Connecticut, Washington, and Oregon. |
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On July 11th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "College
Cost Reduction Act of 2007" (HR 2669) by a vote of 273-149. The bill
will substantially increase the purchasing power of the Pell Grant, the
nation's premiere need-based grant program which benefits millions of
low income students, increasing the maximum grant amount by $100 for
five years beginning in 2008-9. It will make student loan debt more
affordable by cutting the interest rate on student loans in half, to
3.4%, by 2012, and by capping loan repayment amounts to a reasonable
percentage of a graduate's income. HR 2669 goes a long way toward
solving the college affordability and access crisis in the country. |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2007 CONTACT:
Laura Deehan, CALPIRG, laura@calpirgstudents.org Today, the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (ACSFA) released their report to Congress on solutions to the problem of skyrocketing college textbook prices. The study was requested last year by Congressmen David Wu (D-OR) and Buck McKeon (R-CA), part of a follow up to the 2005 Government Accountability Office study that confirmed much of the Make Textbooks Affordable campaign’s research on the problem. “The report confirms the burden of textbook prices on students and offers a smart package of solutions that can introduce real competition into the publishing industry and free students from the stranglehold that traditional publishers have on the market,” said Laura Deehan, the CALPIRG Assistant Organizing Director. “In particular, we urge faculty, colleges and policymakers to do everything in their power to hasten the development and adoption of openly-licensed learning content.” A full analysis of the report can be found at our website. Items of particular note include:
“I applaud the work of the advisory committee. Many of their findings and recommendations confirm what those of us pushing for meaningful solutions have suspected all along—rising textbooks costs and the lack of competition have created a barrier for college students. As the report makes clear, the publishing industry must not and cannot be allowed to continue their deceptive marketing practices," said State Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro). Senator Corbett went on to further state that “full and complete disclosure to faculty of pertinent information such as cost, product lists, revisions made and estimated length of time on market by marketing reps, as proposed in my bill, will help bring about lower costs for students and parents alike.” Although the report’s overall conclusions are very strong, the Make Textbooks Affordable Project had some criticisms of the report. For example, the report should have made clearer that “E-books” are much less ideal than other “21st century” alternatives. In some cases, “E-books” are actually more expensive than even traditional hardbound books once the buyback value of a book is factored in. Read more in the report analysis. "Textbooks are a huge burden for community college students often impacting how many classes they can afford to take," says Eva Jackson, Student Trustee-elect for the Los Angeles Community College District. "We surveyed hundreds of students at Los Angeles Southwest College and found students overwhelmingly said they'd take more classes if the books were cheaper. |
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The California state senate just approved the CALPIRG sponsored College Textbooks Affordability Act at a vote of 24-14. This law will make textbooks cheaper for students by making price a factor when faculty are choosing between different books. Right now publishers do not disclose the price of books and so most faculty choose textbooks for their classes without keeping cost in mind. This new law will require publishers disclose the information about all their books so that faculty can make a decision with cost in mind. The bill heads to the assembly higher education committee next. |
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At the University of California-Santa Barbara, students presented Chancellor Henry Yang with the Campus Climate Challenge Award for 2007 for recently collaborating with fellow Chancellors and UC President Dynes to commit the UC to becoming "climate neutral as soon as possible." The event was organized by students to raise awareness on the actions taken by their university to address global warming and to thank their Chancellor for his work around this issue. |
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The U.S. House of Representatives voted to increase the size of the maximum Pell Grant by $260, to $4,310. This is the first time the size of the Pell Grant has been increased since 2002. The Pell Grant is the federal government’s premier need-based grant aid program, providing aid to more than five million low-income students. Over the last five years, while students have paid more for college, the maximum Pell Grant has remained frozen. As a result students have had to make up the gap between tuition and aid with more work and larger loans. This increase will start to provide students with the aid they need to access an affordable college education. To fully restore the Pell Grant to its historic value, we’re continuing to call for the maximum to be increased to $5,100 in the coming budget cycle. |
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On
January 18th, by a vote of 264 to 163, the
U.S. House of Representatives passed the Clean Energy Act. The U.S.
PIRG-backed measure closes some tax loopholes for big oil companies, recovers
billions in lost royalties for drilling in public waters, and shifts more than
$14 billion to investments in clean energy. For more information, read http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006189616. |
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On January 17th, by a vote of 356 to 71, the U.S. House passed, by an
overwhelming bipartisan majority, legislation to lower the interest rates on
student loans over the next five years. According to an analysis by the Student
PIRGs, the move would save the average low or middle-income borrower starting
school in 2007 $2,300 in debt. For more information, read http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/us/18loans.html |
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CALPIRG, along with other student groups, teamed up with USAC to register nearly 3,000 students to vote in the November elections this fall. CALPIRG registered nearly 1500 of those voters, and volunteers registered 526 new voters on Monday October 23rd alone, the most on any one day in the entire state! |
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Monday, October 23 was the last day to register to vote in California, and Long Beach State students registered all day long. People were coming up to the table until 7:30 pm to register to vote, for a daily total of 334 voters registered! The total number of students registering with ASI and CALPIRG this semester is over 1350, and now the big job is getting out to vote on Tuesday November 7th! |
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Last week, students from the UC Davis CALPIRG chapter held an event to pressure our local congressional representative, Mike Thompson, to sign on to co-sponsor the Safe Climate Act. After the many calls generated, Thompson signed on to the act last Friday, September 29th. |
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Organizers Jeanette Barsh and Kate Doering worked with student volunteers at Cal State Fullerton to register 210 students to vote in a single week. Volunteers registered voters at tables on campus with ASI and the CSUF Votes Coalition, while others visited classes to register students. This represents a big first step in the overall goal of registering 2000 students to vote for this fall's General Election. |
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In just two days at Long Beach City College, CALPIRG student volunteers registered over 100 new voters. In addition, CALPIRG set up laptops for students to find the location of their polling places. |
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The New Voters Project has kicked off at LACC. So far this semester, we have registered 50 voters and have had 200 students pledge to vote. We are well on out way to having 3000 students pledge to vote and 1000 students registered to vote. |
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Los Angeles Trade Technical College President Roland "Chip" Chapelaine endorsed CALPIRG's New Voters Project, becoming one of the first college presidents to publicly support the student registration and get out the vote campaign this election season. LA Trade Tech is one of the largest technical colleges in the nation, boasting a student population of just over 12,000 students. CALPIRG plans to register over 1000 voters before the dealine in late October and contact several thousand more during its GOTV drive the last few days before the election. |
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