Civil War at Harvard over Textbook Costs

Eye-opening article in yesterday's Boston Globe re: student concerns over the textbook cost issue at Harvard,with a headline that reads: " In Harvard Square, a war over words". The first paragraph says that "A battle over book prices is raging in Harvard Square between student leaders and the Harvard Coop, the book store created by students 125 years ago to cut down on costs." Take a look.

For me, one of the most interesting parts of the article was the number of states that are introducing legislation in attempts to give students some relief: "Prices of college texts have spiked so severely across the country that since January, 86 bills to make them more affordable have been filed in 27 states, including Massachusetts, according to a national college bookstore group. College students on average spend $700 to $1,000 a year on textbooks, according to a May 2007 report by a congressional advisory committee, which also recommended various solutions to reduce prices, including creating online book databases easily accessible to students".

Is this a sea change or what?

-Don