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With her brow pinched under her glasses, Evelyn Hairston tossed an algebra book back atop the others stacked on the shelf in the GTCC bookstore Thursday afternoon.

Hairston was pricing books with her daughter Sierra, who is a freshman at the college this semester. Not much has changed, Hairston said, from when she was in school at N.C. A&T - textbooks are still too expensive.

"Here at GTCC, the books are more than the tuition," she said.

Those prices could be coming down. President Bush reauthorized the Higher Education Act on Thursday, which addresses rising costs connected to college including the price of textbooks.

The revised bill includes federal limits on textbook bundling, the practice of packaging materials such as CDs and workbooks with the textbook. Many opponents to the practice argue it is one of the major factors in the increased cost of textbooks.

The Association of American Publishers, a trade group representing several of the major textbook publishers, said most already offer the textbooks and materials separately. It is the professor and the university bookstore that choose the bundled option.

"It's not just price, it's quality," said Bruce Hildebrand, a spokesman with the AAP.

Professors choose bundled materials because they have found those materials help improve tests scores, Hildebrand said. Despite that, many local college officials say they are working to cut costs in their bookstores.

UNCG announced this week it will discount textbooks by 5 percent. Business Affairs Director Mike Byers said the measure will keep prices from increasing rather than cut them.

The discount is an effort to control textbook costs, much of which bookstores blame on publishers.

"It's extremely frustrating because we're the ones that have to face the students when they're buying the textbooks and we have very little control over the biggest component that goes into pricing the textbook," Byers said.

About half the profits earned through the bookstore - nearly $264,000 last year - are placed in the university's scholarship fund. The bookstore should produce about that much in scholarship funding each year for the next four years with the 5 percent discount.

The university will share the price cut with Barnes & Noble, which contracts with the school to operate the bookstore.

Still, the entire process can be overwhelming for students and families. Brandon Fair loaded his arms with a stack of new and used books totaling about $500. The A&T freshman couldn't decide which was bigger, the book or the price.

"They're huge. I didn't think they'd be this big or this expensive," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing@news-record.com