What the Hell of the Week: Doing Something About Textbook Prices
Anthony Diaz
Issue date: 1/23/06 Section: Life & Leisure
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Let's begin this week's article with a little story.
It seems that a student actually sold his kidney in an effort to raise enough money to pay for his spring semester textbooks. While his fellow peers have resorted to theft and drug sales to deal with this problem, Jonathan Goodrich decided he would sell an organ.
Jonathan was found in a tub of ice next to a dumpster by a local woman. When asked how he chose the kidney he stated, "well, I knew I had two of them so I guess losing one wouldn't hurt. It did. Plus, the kidney doesn't get too much on the black market so I had to buy used textbooks.
"I can't afford new books. I'm no idiot. I just hope I can grow that kidney back before spring semester."
Sadly it seems at the time of this interview Jonathan did not have enough money to pay for his freshman biology book.
Goddamn textbooks cost too much money and we point fingers at bookstores and this person and the next. There are many solutions to this problems covered in the past Observer about online sites you can use or how Bradley is now going to match Amazon's prices. This is all good and dandy but still most of us public schoolers are shocked when we come to college and realized that the books that we didn't have to pay for, like those out-of-date history books that refer to Reagan as the current president, don't look all that bad now.
However a current solution I am proposing to the staff and faculty of Rutgers is that we come up with a contract or a treaty between departments asking them to select the older editions of books and, if not, that they can arrange for the Affordable Copies method.
Some subjects have not changed dramatically in the past few years; some subjects haven't changed in a couple of hundred years.
This why we need a Student Union. Our SGA has not taken on the problem of textbooks effectively for years and it's time that a new representative force tackle the problems of textbooks. I propose that others join me in the efforts of forming this Student Union. We shall start by having representatives of the students to arrange meetings with certain departments to discuss the older edition route and the copied reading packets so we can end all of this outrageous pricing of books.
By doing this we are putting the power back into the hands of students.
It seems that a student actually sold his kidney in an effort to raise enough money to pay for his spring semester textbooks. While his fellow peers have resorted to theft and drug sales to deal with this problem, Jonathan Goodrich decided he would sell an organ.
Jonathan was found in a tub of ice next to a dumpster by a local woman. When asked how he chose the kidney he stated, "well, I knew I had two of them so I guess losing one wouldn't hurt. It did. Plus, the kidney doesn't get too much on the black market so I had to buy used textbooks.
"I can't afford new books. I'm no idiot. I just hope I can grow that kidney back before spring semester."
Sadly it seems at the time of this interview Jonathan did not have enough money to pay for his freshman biology book.
Goddamn textbooks cost too much money and we point fingers at bookstores and this person and the next. There are many solutions to this problems covered in the past Observer about online sites you can use or how Bradley is now going to match Amazon's prices. This is all good and dandy but still most of us public schoolers are shocked when we come to college and realized that the books that we didn't have to pay for, like those out-of-date history books that refer to Reagan as the current president, don't look all that bad now.
However a current solution I am proposing to the staff and faculty of Rutgers is that we come up with a contract or a treaty between departments asking them to select the older editions of books and, if not, that they can arrange for the Affordable Copies method.
Some subjects have not changed dramatically in the past few years; some subjects haven't changed in a couple of hundred years.
This why we need a Student Union. Our SGA has not taken on the problem of textbooks effectively for years and it's time that a new representative force tackle the problems of textbooks. I propose that others join me in the efforts of forming this Student Union. We shall start by having representatives of the students to arrange meetings with certain departments to discuss the older edition route and the copied reading packets so we can end all of this outrageous pricing of books.
By doing this we are putting the power back into the hands of students.