Textbook publishing companies are getting schooled about their outrageously high prices thanks to the activation of 2008’s Higher Education Opportunity Act.

First proposed in July 2008, the law, which came into effect July 1, outlines several provisions to help lower the price of textbooks in the United States.

“Professors tell me they don’t even know the retail prices of the textbooks they assign for classes,” Illinois Senator Richard Durbin said. “That’s hard for me to believe, but I have seen it happen.”

Durbin, author of the Textbook Affordability Act, said there would be three major changes in the fall — displaying publisher disclosures, unbundling and course scheduling disclosures.

Publishing companies are now required to display the price of the textbooks when the professors are reviewing them.

The idea is that if the professors have the information up front, they will be able to make more economical decisions when deciding which books to assign.

The University’s chemistry department has been writing and producing its own materials for several years. Lecture outlines, lab manuals and textbooks have driven prices through the roof in the past, and since chemistry is required for most majors, there’s no way around the expensive costs.

“Only indifferent professors assign books without looking at the prices,” said Nick Biddle, a Spanish major from Asheville, N.C. “Especially professors who wrote the books they are

assigning to students. That’s making the students pay the professor personally. I’m 100 percent against the professor assigning books they wrote to their own students.”

With increase of technology, Charles Atwood and the other writers of the Chemistry textbook have decided to go electronic.

“The textbook and supplement will be all electronic this year which will cut the price down to nothing, $15 I think,” said Atwood. “However, the lab manual and lecture outline must be printed for obvious reasons, and they will still be around $150 before the bookstore adds its markup.”

“I regret paying as much for my [general chemistry] book as I did,” said Kristen Hamsley, a junior biological sciences and avian biology double major from Perry.

The second provision in the law states that publishers are not allowed to bundle packages of books with supplements.

“The main driver for textbook costs is unnecessary extras,” Durbin said. “CDs, workbooks and Internet website access are now going to be sold as pieces instead of as packages.”

This lowers the cost of books if the professors do not use the supplements, but if they use the supplements in class, the price has not actually changed.

“We sell the books unbundled with all the supplements separated as well as the bundled packages,” said Kevin Renshaw, the regional manager at the UGA Bookstore. “It’s all about giving the student the choice to make the right decision for themselves.”

“Finally, colleges have to include the retail price of required materials in the course schedule for the upcoming term,” Durbin said.

Hamsley believes this part of the law will allow students to find other means of getting books, but not by buying from the bookstores.

“This will help students find the books online somewhere else before class starts, but even then it’s not the best,” Hamsley said. “I never shop at the bookstore if I can help it. I don’t buy textbooks new either because they are so expensive.”

“Students are still going to be taking the same classes they have been and are still going to have to pay the same price they always have,” said Biddle. “I don’t see how this helps.”