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Taking Aim At Digital Publishing to Bring Down the Cost of E-Texts for College Students

February 22, 2010


With Governor Paterson proposing that New York’s public universities be allowed to freely raise tuition, opening the floodgates for cash-strapped colleges to hit students with big bills as they scramble to overcome cuts to tuition assistance, I have released a report showing that electronic resources have the potential to bring down the cost of higher education for low- and middle-income families struggling to put their kids through college.

Students spend more than $1000 each academic year on required texts and electronic texts are much cheaper, but right now the way the publishing industry does business fixes the prices higher than they should be and involves licenses that are toxic and restrict use of these texts in ways that printed books are not restricted.

The plan that my report recommends requires some legislative changes, and I have introduced three bills, A.9893, A.9894, and A.9897 as a package to give CUNY and SUNY the tools those institutions need to fight the publishing Goliath.

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Written by Micah · Filed Under Albany Report, Blogroll, Legislative Updates 

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