Each semester I cringe at the thought of paying, not only tuition and fees, but also the ridiculously-high price for textbooks. The growing cost of textbooks at the University of Wyoming Bookstore is a problem.
Some people say that the mounting cost of textbooks is due to instructional supplements like CD-ROMs, study guides and websites.
According to mndaily, the average college student dishes out more than $900 a year on textbooks and the cost of textbooks has grown at twice the rate of inflation since the 1980s; a bit more inflation than additional supplements would justify.
There are special circumstances that allow publishers and bookstores to charge more for textbooks. College students are required to buy them. For each course, there is usually a required textbook that, chances are, will be a student’s means of passing the class. So, you pull out your credit card and try not to think about the groceries you will be going without.
When the semester is over, the University of Wyoming Bookstore will buy back your textbooks, but only for a fraction of what you paid. The bookstore then turns around and sells the book again making a second, third or fourth profit on the book.
On top of being required, new editions are printed regularly with minimal changes, zapping any chance students have of getting a penny or two back for the book.
Isn’t college expensive enough? Most college students have growing debt and struggle to pay for necessities like food and rent. The University of Wyoming Bookstore needs to stop taking advantage of their special circumstances and charge students fairly for textbooks as well as buying used books back for a reasonable price. Until then, student should order textbooks from online bookstores like Amazon, Half, Campusbooks, and Cheapbooks to keep the costs of buying textbooks down each semester.
I could not agree more that text books ore over priced. The new editions are one of the biggest frustrations. There is a site you should check out, and maybe even post as a link along with your story. It is cowboybookswap.com, and it's all for uw students to sell books to each other, and not to the book store. You can search books by class, and I think even by isbn. Check it out.
ReplyDeleteUgh the way schools bring in and spend money will always confuse me! Explain why my student fees have gone up, butthe budgets of programs such as Student Publications are continually reduced. It's insanity.
ReplyDeleteTextbooks are a huge portion of student expenses. This letter to the editor at Eastern Washington University (http://media.www.easterneronline.com/media/storage/paper916/news/2009/05/13/Opinion/Letter.To.The.Editor.Textbook.Solutions-3740785.shtml) gives words to every student's frustrations.
I could not agree more. But the thing is with some majors it is wiser to keep your books after you buy them. With education there are several theories that seem to consitantly come up again and again. If you have the books that you had while in college not only can you keep up, but appear ahead of the curve because you have the right materials at hand. While the books are indeed over priced for college students, for me keeping a few of the books has actualy paid off for other classes as well as when I did my student teaching.
ReplyDeleteThis is a case where the Internet is the great equalizer. My wife is in college now and hasn't had to buy more than about three books from the bookstore in the past two years. Everything else has come from half.com or Amazon.
ReplyDeletePerhaps part of the reason why the bookstore is so expensive is because students realize the bookstore isn't the only option any more. To make up for what they've lost by their customers moving to the internet, they've had to jack up their prices.
Maybe on-campus bookstores should act less like businesses and move more to a non-profit setup, where books are provided at costs high enough for the bookstore to cover its own costs but low enough to compete with the crowd now shopping at half.com or Amazon.