Go figure. Textbooks through the UW System bookstores are high priced-very, very high priced! The Milw Journal-Sentinel ran a great article http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=639173 on this issue focusing on all the campuses.
The dirty little secret not brought out in the article is the university profit margin on the textbooks. Some faculty, not myself, have opposed rental textbooks because of quickly changing texts would freeze out the latest and best scholars. To a certain extent, in many areas, I can understand that but, in other areas I don't agree with it.
Our university administration though, opposes rentals simply on a profit margin. A former asst vice-chancellor here did trumpet the rental program which was shot down very quickly. The dirty little secret is profit margin. Reeve Union sucks up over a $1million in student seg fees every year and the bookstore profit margins mitigate this figure.
Many of my students routinely spend $500+ for books per semester. What further is driving this figure up is as many students figure out alternative methods of book shopping i.e. Amazon, Harry's Books Store etc, the university bookstore raises prices further to offset lost sales. Much in the way Reeve food sales volume continues to decline annually with the influx of restaurants on Wisconsin St, the unit prices continue to increase.
1 comment:
If you haven't already, you should check out the editorial in today's (8/12/07) New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/
opinion/12granof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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