Textbook costs—and buying online

In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Students at the State University of New York and City University of New York could save nearly 40 percent on textbooks by buying them online instead of at campus bookstores, according to a new report by Thomas P. DiNapoli, comptroller of New York State. Over the course of a year, those savings would make up most of a tuition increase just announced by SUNY, DiNapoli said.

In many cases, DiNapoli said that students are unable to benefit from these savings because professors don’t provide information about books early enough to allow for comparison shopping and online ordering.

One reason for the high cost of textbooks at some college campuses—e.g., at Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges—is the cut that student government takes when books are sold through the college bookstore.

Some of our trustees have grumbled about this situation—and other ways in which, allegedly, student government takes funds but does not effectively benefit students—for years.

I’m afraid I've got to agree with ‘em. Student leaders would be wise to police themselves in this regard. If not, student government stands to lose bigtime.

Some faculty have told me that they already urge their students to buy their textbooks online.

MEANWHILE, scientists seem pleased with President-elect Obama's choices of science advisors. On Friday, physicist Bob Park opined:

His choices have one thing in common: they are as different as they could be from those they will replace. Science is emerging, somewhat shaken, from the most secret presidency in our history. The success and credibility of science are anchored in the willingness of scientists to openly expose their ideas and results to challenge by other scientists. Just before Christmas, Obama tapped Harold Varmus and Eric Lander to head the President's Council of Science Advisors, a task they will share with John Holdren. According to the NY Times, Obama pledges to listen to their advice "especially when it is inconvenient." Varmus, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Michael Bishop for their discovery of the origin of retroviral oncogenes, resigned as head of NIH early in the Bush presidency to concentrate on the open-access system for scientific papers. He believes that scientists should have control over the dissemination of their research rather than journal editors. The culture of openness is perhaps the most important discovery of science. 

Governments should try it.