A federal effort to clamp down on sky-high textbook prices doesn’t go far enough and more regulation is still needed at the state level, local advocates said.

The Higher Education Act of 2008, which President George W. Bush signed last month, contains provisions that aim to lower the cost of textbooks by requiring publishers to reveal more pricing information to faculty members and bookstore buyers and to also sell elements of textbook bundles individually.

But state Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s), who represents College Park, said more could still be done on the state level.

“The federal law is a step in the right direction,” he said, but he would only rate the bill a four out of 10. “We’ll definitely be back next year with state legislation.”

John Verde, the CEO of BookHolders.com and an advocate for lower textbook prices, said the bill didn’t go far enough in correcting the flawed textbook market. “In this case, the market is so screwed up,” he said.

The fundamental problem in the textbook market, advocates say, is the people who select the products – professors – aren’t the people who pay for them – students. This weakens the incentive professors have to choose the cheapest textbooks possible.

Verde said the bill targets three flaws in the textbook market but only succeeds in addressing one of them. Publishers are now required to inform professors about older editions and provide more pricing information.

But provisions designed to give more information to students and competing bookstores were weakened. The university is required to give ISBNs to students, but there is no deadline for doing so, meaning the university could wait until the first day of classes. And a provision intended to require universities to release more information to competing bookstores now simply requires them to release their information to the university bookstore.

“The publishers are very powerful and have very powerful lobbies,” Verde said, accusing Congress of watering the bill down. Also, none of the provisions will go into effect until 2010.

Publishers have already started to undermine the requirement to “unbundle” textbooks and sell books and additional CDs and extras separately. They do, but make the price of buying the individual items much higher than the cost of the bundle, Verde said.

Also, assigning each book a unique access code for online materials prevents books from being resold, as the purchaser of a used book can’t access the online materials. Verde said he thinks access codes will become increasingly prevalent in the coming years.

“If people think the prices of textbooks are high now, they haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.

Last spring, a textbook bill that appeared ready for passage in the state legislature failed to pass by a midnight deadline on the last day of the legislative session. Rosapepe said he plans to reintroduce the bill, which would have several additional provisions.

“We’ve just scratched the surface of lowering the cost of textbooks,” Rosapepe said.

Rosapepe said he wants to see the University System of Maryland use its market power – there are 130,000 students in the system – to lower prices.

“The university system should be an aggressive market participant on the behalf of students,” he said.

He would also like to make online quizzes, tests and homework products controlled by the university instead of the publisher and would like to create a textbook rental program.

Regardless of laws, the university is making an effort to help students comparison shop. Last year, the university asked all professors to post textbook lists by May 1. About 70 percent of all classes met the deadline, said Jim Osteen, an assistant vice president for student affairs. The university also promised to make ISBNs available, which Osteen said happened for the vast majority of classes.

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