H-1763.2
SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 1375
State of Washington
65th Legislature
2017 Regular Session
By House Higher Education (originally sponsored by Representatives Van Werven, Tarleton, Orwall, Griffey, Haler, Holy, McCabe, Young, Dent, Riccelli, Bergquist, Buys, Kraft, Kagi, Ryu, Muri, Goodman, Lovick, Frame, and Hargrove)
READ FIRST TIME 02/16/17.
AN ACT Relating to providing students with the costs of required course materials; adding a new section to chapter 28B.50 RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1.  The legislature recognizes the high cost of textbooks and the burden this can create for students. The legislature also recognizes the work of the state board for community and technical colleges in creating the open course library, in which free textbooks and other course materials are available for eighty-one of the highest enrolled courses in the community and technical college system. The student public interest research groups completed a cost analysis of the open course library and found that students who take open course library courses save ninety-six dollars on average per course over a traditional textbook. Therefore, it is the legislature's intent to incentivize faculty to use resources available on the open course library by informing students of a textbook's cost when they register for a class.
NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2.  A new section is added to chapter 28B.50 RCW to read as follows:
(1) During the registration process, the community and technical colleges shall display the cost of any required textbook or other course materials in the online course description or provide a link that directly connects to a bookstore's web site or other web site where students can view the textbooks' or course materials' costs without having to do an additional search. If a course's required textbooks and course materials are not determined prior to registration due to an unassigned faculty member, the textbooks' and course materials' cost must be provided as soon as feasible after a faculty member is assigned.
(2) Community and technical colleges shall indicate in the online course description if open educational resources are used once the community or technical college has implemented the ctcLink system.
(3) Each community and technical college shall annually report to the college board which courses provided textbooks' and course materials' costs to students at the beginning of registration, and what percent of total classes this equaled. The college board shall report the information to the legislature in accordance with RCW 43.01.036 by January 1st each year, beginning January 1, 2018.
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