Report 2007-116 Recommendation 5 Responses

Report 2007-116: Affordability of College Textbooks: Textbook Prices Have Risen Significantly in the Last Four Years, but Some Strategies May Help to Control These Costs for Students (Release Date: August 2008)

Recommendation #5 To: Community Colleges Chancellor's Office

To ensure that faculty are aware of factors affecting textbook costs, UC, CSU, and the community colleges should issue guidance on the textbook adoption process. In developing this guidance, they should direct campuses to encourage faculty to consider price in the textbook adoption process and, without compromising the quality of the education students receive or the academic freedom of faculty, to consider adopting less costly textbooks whenever possible.

1-Year Agency Response

According to the community colleges, it developed recommendations to colleges on textbook affordability in a report that it presented to its board of governors in May 2008 that address several of the bureau's recommendations. It indicated that one of the primary recommendations in its report was for colleges to create local textbook affordability taskforces that would include academic senates, faculty, and other stakeholders to address these issues. According to the community colleges, campuses began working on implementing the recommendations in its report at the start of the 2008-09 academic year. Further, the community colleges indicated that management and staff of its system office made several presentations at statewide conferences of various community college stakeholders on textbook affordability that address the bureau's recommendations and its staff continued to make presentations in 2009 at statewide conferences whenever the opportunity presented itself. In addition, the community colleges stated that its system office developed an on-line archive and Web site of research, policy, legislation, links, and other useful information to assist local college textbook affordability taskforces in implementing our recommendations. For instance, the Web site includes examples of campus textbook adoption policies and information on strategies to reduce textbook costs for students. The community colleges also indicated that it emailed an announcement on the contents of its Web site to community college constituent groups, including faculty in October, 2009. (See 2010-406, pp. 158-159)

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2007-116

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.