“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.”
-First Amendment, United States Constitution
Overpriced and underpaid: The cost and value of college textbooks
By Constance Palmer
Guest Writer
Cpalmer2@my.westga .edit
As anyone who
has stepped foot on a
college campus knows,
money is definitely a
cherished yet limited
resource. Depending on
the generosity of your
sponsors, also known
as parents, you are
constantly under the
hammer, struggling to
pay tuition, eat, live,
sleep, and pay for the gas
that gets you to and from
work.
All of these holes
poked into your money
bowl can deplete the
contentsof the bow l rather
quickly. So needless to
say, after feeding the
hungry mouths of these
financial termites, we
barely have enough left
over to buy toilet paper.
Although difficult,
we still manage to make
all the ends meet, but
considering the recent
trend of rising textbook
prices, it appears that
making these ends
meet in the future will
become an impossible
feat. Should there not be
a system to help out the
ambitious “little guy?”
The price of college
textbooks is outrageous.
The cost of books has
risen more than the rate
of inflation or the cost
of tuition over the last
decade. UWG students
say they pay an average
of $500.00 on textbooks
in a single semester.
According an article
by Jim Marchman, a
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Disclaimer
The opinions in this section do
not reflect the views of the
University of West Georgia, the
staff of the West Georgian, or the
Mass Communications program.
"m tfes.
l‘linli> by Terence Rushin
The cost of textbooks has risen more than the rate of inflation or the cost of tuition
over the last decade. Some UWG students say they pay an average of $500.00 on text
books in a single semester.
professor of aerospace
and ocean engineering at
Virginia Tech, textbooks
are sold at about ten
times the cost of
publishing them, so there
is obviously enormous
profit in this business.
Marchmann has co
authored and published
textbooks in the past.
Due to the staggering
cost, many students shop
the Web for bargains or
simply go without.
It is a shame that
students are faced with
the difficulty of being
able to afford the very
tools they need to lay
the groundwork for their
field. Fortunately, this
issue is exactly what
our representatives
in the house are now'
questioning - laws are
now being passed to lower
the cost of textbooks
for college students
purchased on campus.
A number of states
have or are currently
composing similar bills
to accomplish this feat in
their home areas.
In 2007, Washington
State takes the lead in this
new reform. Effective
July 22,2007,theCollege
Textbook Transparency
Act requires publishers
to disclose prices and
changes made in new
editions to faculty.
The goal is to help
lower the astronomical
cost of textbooks for
students by making
faculty aware, so that
they can help also. How?
If teachers are aware of
cost and changes they
Opinion
can elect to use different
editions or different texts
to help lower the cost, or
simply continue to use
oldereditions that haven't
been changed enough
to make a significant
difference in the quality
of the material.
Specifically, the
CTTA - also known
as House Bill 2300
- requires that “Each
publisher of college
textbooks shall make
immediately available to
a prospective purchaser
of their products who is a
member of the faculty of
an institution of higher
education:
(a) the price at which
the publisher would make
the products available to
the store on the campus
of the institution that
Welcome UWG to
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With Student ID
would offer the products
to students: and
(b)the history of
revisions to the products,
if any.”
Is this bill another
one of those “good
in theory” ideas or
will it actually make
a difference? Since it
depends so heavily on the
active involvement of the
teachers and bookstores
in its implementation,
this remains to be
seen, however neither
employees at the on
campus bookstore, nor
at the Braves bookstore
knew about these laws.
Also, many professors
admit they do not know
about these major
changes.
Another important
issue is the used book
m
market. Since students
spend so much money on
their texts, they often sell
them back to university
bookstores in order to
make back some of the
money they initially
spent.
However, bookstores
will only return a
fraction of what the
texts cost when they are
bought new. According
to employees at both
the on and off campus
bookstores, this number
is not determined by the
store.
Publishing
companies provide
figures for what new
books should be sold
for and what used books
should be bought back
for. The fact that students
are almost coerced
by financial need into
selling the texts back for
these significantly lower
amounts shows a serious
misplacement of values.
These books are the
fundamental building
blocks for students to
learn their field, and
many like to keep them
for later use as basic
reference material
They are like tools to a
mechanic, or a scalpel to
a surgeon - necessary to
a fundamentally cohesive
performance in their
field.
With the semester
coming to a close and
that time of year that
tugs at our wallets comes
around again, we should
all be thinking about
these changes and how
they will affect us all.
Let’s all be aware.
