A stakeholder group striving to convince the North Carolina General Assembly to lower the costs of textbooks will hold its first meeting next week after months of planning, according to Tim Lipka, a junior in political science.
Originally, Lipka had pushed for tax-free textbooks.
“Back in the spring I went and spoke with the General Assembly about lowering the tax on textbook prices, but they said there was nothing they could do about the tax,” Lipka said.
According to Lipka, North Carolina is a full member in the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, which means added tax regulations.
“The assembly said because they are on the board, they have to keep the taxes in North Carolina the same as in other states on the board,” he said. “They just can’t make them tax free.”
After having a meeting with Representative Pat McElraft, Lipka said he had a few ideas on things he could do.
“I was on my way home to Charlotte and I was going over my notes from my meeting,” he said. “She had made a couple of suggestions, and I decided to form the group.”
According to Lipka, the group, which comprises students, book publisher representatives, and Rep. McElraft, will gather information and make a report to the General Assembly which will hopefully lower the costs of textbooks.
“I’m not sure if we can tackle it from the tax standpoint, but hopefully this will form some sort of initiative to lower the costs,” Lipka said.
Patrick O’Loughlin, a junior in computer engineering, said he’s thrilled with the idea of lowering textbook costs.
“Textbook costs are way too high,” he said. “When I was a freshman, I had to pay $300 a semester for books. I’ve probably spent $1,000 on books, and that’s only because I’ve taken a lot of online classes. Someone who hasn’t has probably shelled out close to $3,000 by their junior year.”
O’Loughlin said that other tax-free initiatives, such as ‘Get Booked Early’, helped lower the costs of textbooks, but that this system has a flaw.
“If the book store was out of books, you couldn’t get [them] and [would have] had to wait until later,” he said. “Also, if a book wasn’t required for a course it wouldn’t give it to you. This happened to me, only my professor said that she did require the book, so I had to go back out and buy it, tax included.”
Chase Green, a freshman in mechanical engineering, said he agrees with O’Loughlin, and he believes the cost of textbooks should come from the University.
“I pay a couple thousand dollars for tuition each year, so I don’t see how the University can’t pay for our books,” Green said. “With everything else I have to buy for school, it’s a ripoff that I have to buy books too. You could easily go bankrupt on textbooks alone.”
Lipka said options are going to be discussed at the Stake Holder’s Group meeting next week.
“We’re going to get together and figure out what exactly we can do,” Lipka said. “We have to keep our options feasible. We can’t ask for the University to provide books for every student, because that would just be too much money. Instead, we have to aim for smaller, more reachable goals.”