Focus on High Cost of CUNY Texts

By HERMIA JEAN-LOUIS

The City University of New York has established a plan that reduces the high cost of textbooks by making texts available online instead of on paper for little or no cost and have been making a lot of progress.

The plan came to light on Thursday at a hearing of City Council Committee on Higher Education, where testimony of Vita Rabinowitz, Executive Vice Chancellor of CUNY, faculty and students were given on the updates and improvements of CUNY’s efforts in this area.

“Students spend approximately $1,200 a year on textbooks and supplies,” said Rabinowitz. “For many CUNY students, the of textbooks makes them unaffordable, and therefore, unattainable.” Students sometimes decline to register for a course requiring expensive books and materials, delaying or sabotaging graduation.

When asked by  Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, a CUNY graduate, if there was a CUNY policy on about textbook adoption, she said no, the decisions are left to the instructor or department.

Through the establishment of Open Educational Resources’ (OER) new system, students get textbook updates on the internet.  Rabinowitz explained:

OER is a series of open digital platforms available to any CUNY school bookstore that is either expired or out of a contract. It includes full course materials such as textbooks, videos, and other techniques. OER is available through the Office of Library Services. CUNY faculty may then provide all materials for the semester through the platform. This fall, there are 50 courses available through OER and all 350 courses were expected to be in effect by 2018.

However, so far it has not worked as efficiently as they planned, sources said. Books end up being more expensive because of shipping and handling; the search engine is not capable of looking for books unless provided in the course section; and even when the books are ordered, it takes at least two weeks to arrive with standard shipping. A lot of our students miss the store because it was more than just books. It was where students could purchase apparel to show school spirit.

One of the three CUNY students at the hearing testified that she had trouble getting the textbooks.

 “One of the common denominators that I found to be a core of student’s inability to succeed is the issue of paying for textbooks,” said Fatima Uruchi. She gave the example of a part-time student in her math class living from paycheck to paycheck. When the professor announced that their class would have to purchase a $140 textbook, and an additional fee for an access code that cost more than he text itself, the student dropped the course and was never seen by Uruchi again.

Anotherstudent couldn’t afford the novels required for their literature course. He would borrow from classmates to make copies of the pages, but still found it difficult to learn the material. Uruchi had read all the books in advance and gave the student her novels, helping the student’s grades improve tremendously.  As for the textbook that caused the first student to drop the course, Uruchi said it was “sitting in my closet collecting dust, with the access code never having been used. If only I knew”