By Darrell Steinberg

Spend a half-hour browsing a campus bookstore and you’ll likely leave with your mind reeling from textbook sticker shock.

University physics: $241. Intermediate accounting: $253. Chemistry: $218.

Of course, none of this is breaking news for college students. They know the drill all too well, with required textbooks draining their pockets to the tune of about $1,300 every year.

It’s no wonder that some professors routinely see several students drop their course after the first day or two, after those students realize they can’t afford the textbook. It’s no wonder that many other students try to navigate the course without buying the unaffordable textbook. It’s no wonder that these exorbitant costs force many students to simply drop out of college altogether.

Our struggling students are being squeezed at every end, from rising fees to higher costs of living to fewer opportunities for decent paying part-time jobs. And textbooks are a very big squeeze.

It doesn’t — it shouldn’t — have to be this way. We can do something about it, and we can do it now.

Using 21st century California-based technology, and a decade of development and experience from top institutions like MIT and Rice University, we know it’s possible to provide students with the highest-quality textbooks for a fraction of today’s costs, if not entirely for free. It’s called Open Educational Resources, or OER. What’s missing is a statewide push to say this is California policy — to allow students in our three public college systems to access quality instructional materials for little or no cost.

I’m proposing legislation to launch development of open source textbooks for 50 of the most widely taken lower-division courses in California’s public colleges and universities. We put those books in a virtual, online library through which students and faculty can access them for free. Still want a hard-copy book? Get a print version for about $20.

Through a $25 million state investment, I’m proposing we call on our brightest minds — faculty, publishers, Silicon Valley and nonprofit foundations among others — to bring forward their best ideas and compete to generate this top-notch material. Maybe it’s brand-new, maybe it’s based on existing work. And no one, including existing publishers, is shut out from the game as we develop materials through a process of request for proposals. All of it would be created with an open license known as “creative commons,” allowing free distribution.

Creative commons also would enhance faculty capabilities to create what you might think of as an iTunes playlist for education. Just as you’d customize your music playlist, professors and instructors could mix and match the material, reshaping it for their own courses. No, college faculty won’t be mandated to use open-source material. But with more affordable options that maintain high quality, I’m confident they’ll do the right thing.

And as we launch OER development of these 50 most commonly used textbooks, students would gain immediate relief by another legislative provision; publishers who sell texts to our colleges would be required to provide at least three free copies of each book for campus libraries to place on reserve. Right now, the paucity of library textbook copies is a common frustration for students.

To no one’s surprise, publishers aren’t exactly embracing this concept. After all, with more than 1.3 million California college students taking lower division courses spending an average of $1,300 a year on textbooks, we’re talking $1.8 billion for publishers. I have nothing against people making money, but I’m driven more by the potential of enormous savings for our students and middle-class families.

Publishing representatives claim they’re already slashing prices. You wouldn’t know it by hitting the campus bookstore. In fact, in the past five years, the Consumer Price Index shows textbook prices rising at more than three times the rate of inflation. Publishers also “update” textbooks every three years on average, sometimes with only minor changes, as a way to make used books obsolete more quickly. With digital open-source materials, necessary changes can be made quickly and inexpensively.

A spokesman for the Association for American Publishers even called our proposal “textbooks for Wikipedia,” questioning the quality that would result. Such criticism ignores the peer review built into my proposal, establishing an Open Educational Resources Council composed of top faculty from the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems to vet and approve the OER textbooks.

The frustration being expressed this fall on our college campuses proves the point — now is the time to implement the vision, to bring some measure of relief to our students and middle-class families. A relatively small investment by our state can save Californians hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Let me be clear; this is not a substitute for investing more in higher education. That is going to take time. But developing OER is a tool we can use to help. If we can provide something to soften the blow, we must do it.

Our college systems have a tradition of leading the nation in accessibility and affordability. With a comprehensive program of Open Educational Resources, we can once again be the harbinger of a nationwide movement. We can do better, we can be smarter, in educating our future leaders. Now is the time.

 — Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the state Senate, is a 1984 graduate of the UC Davis School of Law.

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