Agitation
My school's bookstore is a University funded monopoly that profits off of students. Going to the school bookstore is the only way to find out what books you need for class. Yesterday I went there on the first day books were being sold, I need eleven books for my classes. Of those eleven, there were only four books that had a used copy available, and there was only one copy. Bookstore workers constantly harassed me while I was copying ISBN numbers onto a sheet of paper.
I want to know why my school charges me list price for textbooks. Barnes and Noble sells all of their books at below list normally. Amazon.com sells every book (even textbooks) below list price. Why does my school feel that after I give them $30,000 a year for tuition and fees alone that I should pay full manufacturer list price for a textbook? Why are they profiting off of students?
Say what you want about it being a private university, and as such it is a business out to make money; there's no reason for a university bookstore not to operate as a collective. They know what books we need and the quantities. They're going to put in a massive fucking order with somebody. In Boston we have BU, BC, Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, Emerson, and all of the joke colleges, together that's like 300,000 students, surely 300,000 people buying a couple hundred dollars worth of books at a known repeating interval would get us some sort of deal with a publishing house.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure our local school mandated book monopoly does get a huge discount for ordering the books it does. They just don't pass it on to us.
I want to know why my school charges me list price for textbooks. Barnes and Noble sells all of their books at below list normally. Amazon.com sells every book (even textbooks) below list price. Why does my school feel that after I give them $30,000 a year for tuition and fees alone that I should pay full manufacturer list price for a textbook? Why are they profiting off of students?
Say what you want about it being a private university, and as such it is a business out to make money; there's no reason for a university bookstore not to operate as a collective. They know what books we need and the quantities. They're going to put in a massive fucking order with somebody. In Boston we have BU, BC, Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, Emerson, and all of the joke colleges, together that's like 300,000 students, surely 300,000 people buying a couple hundred dollars worth of books at a known repeating interval would get us some sort of deal with a publishing house.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure our local school mandated book monopoly does get a huge discount for ordering the books it does. They just don't pass it on to us.