It’s not a secret that college students often pay a hefty price for their textbooks.

            The price of textbooks is one of the fastest growing prices in the country. According to an analysis done by NBC News, the price of textbooks has grown 1,041 percent since the year 1977. On average, a college student pays $1200 a year on textbooks.

            In order to combat this problem, United States Congress presented a bill on Oct. 8 that would give both smaller schools like Oakland University and bigger schools grants so they could offer textbooks online to professors and students for free.

            “In the ongoing nationwide debate about the rising cost of college, one of the most basic and direct costs to students is often overlooked: textbooks,” Dick Durbin, a senator from Illinois who is among the group that proposed the bill, said.

            The bill’s goal is to take the price of books off students’ chests. After all, college costs enough as it is.

“I hope college faculty throughout the country will explore the opportunities that exist today to use open source materials in their courses to save students money and I hope my colleagues in Congress will support this legislation to provide federal support to that effort,” Durbin said.

So how do the textbooks at OU compare to all of this?

Our bookstore gives a lot of funds to the university. When students buy textbooks from websites like Chegg or Amazon, that particular website makes a profit. The bookstore keeps a lot of the money at OU.

“Some students and faculty may not realize that a percentage of the revenue from campus bookstores goes back directly to the college or university to support student scholarships, special programs and faculty teaching positions,” Jessica Wojcik, the store manager for Barnes & Noble Oakland University, said. “Online retailers do not provide any revenue to colleges or universities to support these very important initiatives.”

In OU’s case, students are paying for something that ultimately benefits the institution they attend.

The Writing and Rhetoric Department took initiatives five years ago to make first year writing courses a little cheaper.

Anyone at OU who has taken Writing 150 or Writing 160 probably has a copy of “Grizz Writes.” Lori Ostergaard, chair of the Department of Writing and Rhetoric, came up with the idea for the book so that writing students wouldn’t have to pay a lot for a mandatory class.

“’Grizz Writes’ costs about $30,” Ostergaard said. “I decided to put the book together about five years ago because our students were paying anywhere from $70 to $120 dollars on textbooks.”

“Grizz Writes” changes every year, so each class of freshman has a different version than the class that came before them. This year, Ostergaard and her department have reorganized and added to the book.

So, small initiatives like “Grizz Writes” have been taken to make some books more affordable, but some members of Congress hope to make sure students don’t have to worry about how they’re going to get books at all.