College students are used to being ripped off. It does not matter where you go to school, if you identify yourself as a college student, you are getting ripped off in some shape or form.
Whether it is paying the overpriced tuition, which increases and increases inexplicably, or paying for a less-than-desirable meal plan, it is all one big rip off after the other.
There is a reason that there is a cliché about the struggling poor college student.
One of the biggest offenders of this is the textbook prices. You do not have to have a column in The Hawk with a catchy title to complain about this. This is one of the main reasons I have always kept my mouth shut, because everyone and their mother (literally) complains about this each semester.
It certainly is not groundbreaking news here. It is just a fact that purchasing textbooks from a college bookstore is going to be expensive. Why do you think websites like half.com are on the rise?
The SJU Bookstore has had a new remedy for this particular grievance with their implementation of the option to rent your textbooks. Through renting textbooks, one only has to pay a much smaller renting fee, and only if you lose or damage the book will you have to pay the full price.
How convenient, right? Well it would be if they rented more than one text per class.
The main texts that are available to rent are the texts that are used frequently or each semester. This is great if you are taking the basic Texts and Contexts English course—aka if you are a freshman.
However, if you are a senior taking upper division courses—or you are in the business school—in which textbook editions change every year, renting is not an option at all.
There are websites that have always offered this option. However, sometimes the convenience of the bookstore comes in handy. When you need a textbook last minute and cannot wait the 7-10 business days through Amazon, the bookstore is the safest choice.
Then, when going in there and seeing that an 80 page book costs $90, you cannot help but feeling both ripped off and like you just sold a little bit of your soul to the devil.
Plus it does not help that there are the “Rent Now” signs posted everywhere. Well, SJU Bookstore, I would love to rent now. I would rent every single textbook on my list if I could. Emphasis on ‘if I could’.
What really does not help after you spend that $90 on a textbook, is when you go into your class and the professor admits that you will only be using said book once or twice that semester, but you still need it – insert an explicative or two that you know you are thinking in your head right now. Two things are wrong with this picture.
One being the simple sentiment: seriously? The second being that in this scenario if renting this particular book was an option, then this whole situation would not be such an annoyance.
Now many people are quick to jump on the professor for this. That age-old complaint that they are making you buy books that they wrote for outrageous prices because—why not? Well, I do not agree.
No, I am not simply sucking up to my professors here. If they were purposely out to drain their students’ bank accounts, then how come I have had so many professors that have recommended right from the beginning to go to an online source, like Amazon, and not the SJU Bookstore? As easy as it is to blame a professor for anything, they understand how overpriced textbooks can be.
Plus, I have noticed a particular grievance with the bookstore from professors this year. I have had multiple courses this semester in which the professor has found out the first week of classes that the bookstore had either ordered the wrong book, or not enough books.
Let me tell you, hearing a professor go off about the bookstore is extremely rewarding when you feel exactly the same way.
It is like that feeling of seeing a professor outside of the classroom at a grocery store or a similar setting.
I highly doubt that bookstore textbook prices will miraculously drop, because this has been going on for years. At this point, college students are so used to getting completely ripped off in every way. No, it does not make sense to pay over $20 for a small paperback book at all, but that is just the way it is.
Just like it does not make sense to pay what students pay for Aramark food. Maybe, with time, students can hold out and hope that renting textbooks will become more accessible to include all required books, and that the bookstore will actually get better at ordering the right books.
As for the overpriced tuition and Aramark, I am not holding my breath on those two.