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Bloody college bookstores
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Hilary the Touched
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- Posts: 7197
- Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:11 pm
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I gots to call that woman--I owe her a visit, dagnabbit.
Here, BonnieKate pointed out to me an article in the Washington Post about this very thing.
Here, BonnieKate pointed out to me an article in the Washington Post about this very thing.
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pat
Aw, thanks, Gillian, that's so sweet.
Yes, Hil, you need to come for a visit, or give me a buzz. It's going to start getting crazy again--we start our semester right after Labor Day (thank goodness--I've always hated the one-class-and-then-a-holiday notion!). And the Deed goes to Ecuador mid-September!
I remember reading this article in the Post--they've actually done several articles on the topic (their recent fav back-to-school is the Amethyst Group notion--lowering the legal drinking age to 18 to cut down on campus binging. Bullshit. It's a way for College Administrators to avoid having to do any policing of underage drinking --administrators love inaction on their part. The solution to binge drinking on campus is to 1. Require Friday classes (MU has started looking at this) 2. Beef up all college course content so that students actually have to put effort into staying in school and 3. kicking their sweet asses out if they can't do the work. But I digress.......)
I've talked to more than a couple of management types at publishing houses, and they concur that they can't make a profit due to the used book market. Any MBA worth his/her salt & U of Chicago econ upbringing would admit that, yes, the market CAN bit you in the butt occasionally--laissez faire!!! They all love their free markets until THEY get burned. But I digress....................
So their solution is to continually come up with new editions--shit, with word processing, it's not so hard to have a new ed every year! Brilliant. The end result will be regulation via legislative action (by the way, MO has tried this by limiting how often profs can change texts, and students have complained that the texts aren't current). If publishers were smart, they'd spend more time talking to students & profs to try to come up with a reasonable solution to this very big problem.
Personally, I think universities should rent the books out to students. We had something like that in my high school. Course, I can see it now: Every school would feel the need to appoint a Dean of Used Books. And raise tuition to cover their risk.
Yes, Hil, you need to come for a visit, or give me a buzz. It's going to start getting crazy again--we start our semester right after Labor Day (thank goodness--I've always hated the one-class-and-then-a-holiday notion!). And the Deed goes to Ecuador mid-September!
I remember reading this article in the Post--they've actually done several articles on the topic (their recent fav back-to-school is the Amethyst Group notion--lowering the legal drinking age to 18 to cut down on campus binging. Bullshit. It's a way for College Administrators to avoid having to do any policing of underage drinking --administrators love inaction on their part. The solution to binge drinking on campus is to 1. Require Friday classes (MU has started looking at this) 2. Beef up all college course content so that students actually have to put effort into staying in school and 3. kicking their sweet asses out if they can't do the work. But I digress.......)
I've talked to more than a couple of management types at publishing houses, and they concur that they can't make a profit due to the used book market. Any MBA worth his/her salt & U of Chicago econ upbringing would admit that, yes, the market CAN bit you in the butt occasionally--laissez faire!!! They all love their free markets until THEY get burned. But I digress....................
So their solution is to continually come up with new editions--shit, with word processing, it's not so hard to have a new ed every year! Brilliant. The end result will be regulation via legislative action (by the way, MO has tried this by limiting how often profs can change texts, and students have complained that the texts aren't current). If publishers were smart, they'd spend more time talking to students & profs to try to come up with a reasonable solution to this very big problem.
Personally, I think universities should rent the books out to students. We had something like that in my high school. Course, I can see it now: Every school would feel the need to appoint a Dean of Used Books. And raise tuition to cover their risk.
Pat, you've nailed it (and welcome back!). I'm listening to the Today Show and during a commercial advertising the local (SDO) news program at 5:00, they mention either renting or downloading books to help students cut the high cost of books. Hilary, your NBC affiliate may be running the same segment this evening, so check it out.
Helen
Helen