A Congressional advisory committee missed the mark this spring when it called for a “national digital marketplace” to reduce textbook costs, an accounting professor at the University of Texas at Austin writes in The New York Times.

Michael H. Granof, whose own textbook was published this year ($134.95 on Amazon.com), suggests an alternative “site license” approach that would save students money by eliminating used-textbook wholesalers from the equation.

“A teacher would pick a textbook, and the college would pay a negotiated fee to the publisher based on the number of students enrolled in the class,” suggests Mr. Granof. “If there were 50 students in the class, for example, the fee might be $15 per student, or $750 for the semester. If the text were used for 10 semesters, the publisher would ultimately receive a total of $150 ($15 × 10) for each student enrolled in the course, or as much as $7,500.”

Students could buy the digital version of the book or pay more for the usual hardcopy version. The novel approach would ensure a revenue stream for the publisher as long as the textbook was being used, Mr. Granof writes. —Don Troop