As a community college professor, I am aware that this is an enormous burden for our students. There was a recent article in the New York Times on the subject: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/...me&ref=general
The new federal guidelines at a minimum require that all of the textbook information be available before you sign up for the class so you can make an informed decision concerning the cost of the books required. Also, we now have to justify the decision to switch textbooks and publishers can no longer bundle materials (a process that inflates the cost by encouraging professors to require materials that may or may not be necessary). Publishers must also publish the cost of the book to the student when they are marketing it to professors.