Public discourse is healthy for democracy when deciding public policy questions. It's even healthier when the media reports the underlying facts correctly.
On May 10, Pat Holmes of The Post published an article claiming that House Bill 472 (the Textbook Affordability Act) would force all state-supported colleges and universities in Ohio to use the same textbooks for introductory-level courses. A quick reading of the actual bill and contact with bill's sponsors, Matt Lundy and Debbie Phillips, revealed that this is nowhere in the bill. The premise of Mr. Holmes's entire article was based around this erroneous presumption. Because Mr. Holmes's article is nearly as long as the actual piece of legislation, readers would have been better served had The Post simply run the text of House Bill 472.
Having settled this relatively important detail, we can now discuss the merits (or actually lack thereof) of the real bill. First, the bill prohibits bookstores from buying back used textbooks at less than half of what students originally paid. While this sounds like an easy and obvious solution, it will likely not achieve the intended goal and may actually increase costs to students. This policy would drive-up the initial price of new textbooks so that the 50 percent buy-back guarantee would remain a worthwhile transaction for the bookstore. Furthermore, because the bill does not require bookstores to actually buy books back, bookstores will more often simply refuse to purchase used textbooks from students in the first place. In the absence of a cheap supply of used textbooks, bookstores and publishers would have the incentive to bring new editions of books to the market even faster. All students know new editions mean much higher prices.
Overall, this bill would make providing used books to students much more costly. By aiming to harm the bookstores, this bill does not realize that students who shop at these stores will bear the brunt of the burden. Bookstores serve a convenience purpose on college campuses anyway. Students truly concerned about saving money on textbooks shop online through sites such as Amazon.com and Half.com. While we laud the legislators for at least putting higher education reform on their agendas, their efforts are misguided. Reform would be much better aimed at other dimensions of higher education.
Matthew Denhart, a senior, and Christopher Matgouranis, a junior, are studying economic and political science at Ohio University. They are both research associates at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
4 Opinion
Letter to the Editor
