I received my AA at a community college last year and they were beginning to take an interesting direction when I was leaving that I hope to see other institutions take.
The college itself was commissioning certain professors (department heads in some instances I believe) within each department to put together their own textbooks for certain subjects. When I would go to the bookstore, I remember seeing books branded with the colleges name rather than your typical textbook publishers. If I remember correctly, these textbooks were significantly cheaper, something on the order of ~$30 for an algebra or calculus book (I can't remember which it was).
Sure, it takes a little bit of work, but in the long run the students save money and the college may actually stand to make a little (or a lot, I don't know what, if any, markup is on them) money as well.
I've had professors apologizing to students in pretty much every class I've taken because of the textbook prices, so they're definitely starting to look at alternatives. So much so that I've had a couple professors tell us to return the books.
The college itself was commissioning certain professors (department heads in some instances I believe) within each department to put together their own textbooks for certain subjects. When I would go to the bookstore, I remember seeing books branded with the colleges name rather than your typical textbook publishers. If I remember correctly, these textbooks were significantly cheaper, something on the order of ~$30 for an algebra or calculus book (I can't remember which it was).
Sure, it takes a little bit of work, but in the long run the students save money and the college may actually stand to make a little (or a lot, I don't know what, if any, markup is on them) money as well.
I've had professors apologizing to students in pretty much every class I've taken because of the textbook prices, so they're definitely starting to look at alternatives. So much so that I've had a couple professors tell us to return the books.