Effective Date of New Textbook Law on the Horizon

By: Respicio F. Vazquez and Jackie F. Wernz

By July 1, 2010, every higher education institution that receives federal funds must implement new disclosure requirements relating to student textbooks. The new mandates intend to allow students better access to affordable textbooks and to provide more transparency and disclosure regarding the process by which textbooks are selected, purchased, sold and used.

Section 133 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which reauthorized the Higher Education Act of 1965 in August, 2008, requires colleges and universities and the publishers of their textbooks to make certain disclosures and undertake certain actions with respect to student textbooks. The requirements for colleges and universities are twofold.

First, colleges and universities must, “to the maximum extent practicable,” disclose on their online course schedules in a manner of their choosing the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and retail price of required and recommended textbooks (and any supplemental material) for each course listed. If the ISBN is not available, the author, title, publisher and copyright date for the textbook materials must be disclosed. If it is not practicable to disclose the required information, the college or university may indicate that the information is “To Be Determined.” There is no indication in the law, however, as to what circumstances would make disclosing the information impracticable.

Second, if a bookstore operated by, in a contractual relationship with or otherwise affiliated with the college or university requests certain information from the college or university, the college or university must disclose the most accurate information available to it as soon as practicable after the request. Specifically, the college or university must provide:

• The institution’s course schedule for the following academic period; and

• For each course or class offered in the following academic period:
• Information required to be disclosed on the online course schedule, described above, for the course or class;
• Number of students enrolled in the course or class; and
• Maximum student enrollment for the course or class.
  
  

The new law also encourages—but does not require—colleges and universities to provide students with information about opportunities to rent or purchase used textbooks, the college or university’s textbook buy-back programs (if any) and information about any other institutional cost-saving strategies for textbooks.

As mentioned above, in addition to the requirements for higher education institutions, the law also requires textbook publishers to make certain disclosures to individuals making decisions as to which textbooks will be used in college and university classrooms. The disclosures relate primarily to the price of textbooks and to the substance of changes, if any, between editions of textbooks. Publishers are also required to “unbundle” textbooks and supplemental materials that go with the textbooks when offering them for sale to colleges and universities. Before, publishers sometimes required textbooks and supplemental materials to be purchased together, even if the supplemental materials were not actually to be used in a course class.