« Religion Majors on the Rise | Main | Natural Law: A Realization in Class »
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Crime on University Campuses spikes at the beginning of each semester, study shows. University officials baffled.
Ever since the invention of the printing press colleges and universities have been ripping off students with textbooks. OK, maybe not that early but it has been a time-honored tradition to charge ridiculous amount of money for seemingly inconsequential reading materials. I have had friends who were charged as much as $200 for a single volume with accompanying compact disc or other supplemental material. Here at USF, one of the cashiers at the bookstore was telling me their most expensive book this semester was a Spanish text ringing in at about $175. And we have all seen the “textbooks” that university bookstores sell that aren’t even bound together; they’re simply a shrink-wrapped stack of pages masquerading as a required reading. The most expensive book I’ve purchased in the past four years has been Fundamentals of Physical Education for the basic Phys. Ed. course required of all undergraduates at UNC-Wilmington. That book was around $80 and was softcover, spiral-bound, and consisted mostly of tear-out worksheets that we had to turn in weekly. A racket for two reasons: you could not sell back the used textbook and it was co-authored by one or two P.E. faculty at UNCW. Therein lies conflict of interest that so many students have complained about over the years: professors assigning their own books for required reading in their courses.
The Daily Pennsylvanian has this story today about this issue and cites a handful of examples, including Robert Sharer using his The Ancient Maya for an anthropology course. Perhaps I’m a little bias because I study Mesoamerican archaeology myself but Sharer’s book is pretty much the definitive volume on the Ancient Maya. It’s huge, almost 900 pages, but I found it new on Amazon.com for a little over $20 last year. Most books are much cheaper on such sites as well as off-campus stores as opposed to an on-campus bookstore so it must be granted that there are options for students. The article describes how some students see a conflict of interest with professors assigning their own books but one author makes the point that sometimes they really have written the most useful material for their uniquely-designed course.
I’m not so much bothered by the perceived conflict of interest as I am of the obviousness of the racket that publishers and universities have. They knowledgeably sell grossly-overpriced material to consumers who traditionally have a limited income (if none at all) and then turn around and give them much less during buyback at the end of the semester. Granted, many times a volume is so obscure that the cost of printing a few hundred copies for a university will jack up the price considerably but more often than not I see flimsy paperbacks and pencil-thin hardcovers selling for much more than other outlets are charging.
Posted by Will at September 13, 2005 08:51 AM in Academia