Biggest Scam on Planet Earth

What is the biggest scam on the planet earth? I bet you're thinking of something along the lines of the nigerian spammer scam, or pyramid schemes, or the electoral system. Well, if you thought of any of those, you'd be wrong.

The biggest scam that exists on this earth is the college bookstore and college textbook publishing system.

Scammer #1 - The University Bookstore
Let me give you a short example of what's been happening to me, and millions of other college students around the country for years. Just this quarter I bought a book: Basic Marketing - A global Managerial Approach (15/e). This eloquently bound set of processed trees cost me $123. I'll give you a few seconds to pick yourself up off the floor, dust yourself off and gather the proper expletives.

It isn't even the outrageous price that gets my goat though. It's the fact that when I sell the book back to the school bookstore, they only pay students half the selling price of the book. So, this Marketing book that I bought is only going to be bought back for $45. As an obstute observer, you will notice that $45 doubled results in a price of $90. But I thought you bought the book for $123, Mr. Jojometal, so shouldn't they buy it back for half of $123? Well, yes, but you see, when you buy a book and use it for a quarter, it loses some of it's value somewhere along the line. You can actually see dimes falling out of your book if you look closely enough.

So, let's review what's going on here. My book's value depreciated 25% in a three month period (my school is on the quarter system), apparently. The text isn't 75% of it's original size. The information isn't 75% accurate, or 75% up to date. It does smell 75% as good, but that's beside the point. Why on earth is my book suddenly worth 75% of the value it had 3 months ago? I still don't really know. Because for the next two years while the book is being used, it will consistently sell for $90. The university book stores will consistently make a profit on the same book, being bought by consumers, repurchased by the university and again sold to consumers. It suffers an initial, and steep, depreciation, after which it's value doesn't change, until the book store discontinues it because a new version of the book comes out. This brings us to the second party involved in the biggest scam on earth.

Scammer #2 - The University Textbook Publisher
So, where do the publishers fit into this equation of face-reddening madness? Well, you see, they have outrageously priced books. $123 for a marketing book that has the same information as the marketing book 3 years ago? Methinks I smell a bit of greed.

The publishers of these books also realize that they're out of the purchasing process that's taking place at universities. There's money to be made, and they're not part of it... something's wrong there. The books they sold two years ago are being bought and sold each semester, or each quarter, and they see none of that money. So, they devised an evil plan - to come out with "updated" editions of books. People will buy the new books, and they'd be back in the cycle, rolling in the cash of the hard working college students they so eagerly overcharge.

You may think to yourself, "It stands to reason that if they're updating the information in these books, that you should buy the new edition." You may also believe that elvis is alive, and that the Atkins diet will help you lose weight. You'd be wrong about all three. They don't update much information, elvis is dead, and you won't lose weight unless you actually exercise. Thems the breaks.

The book publishers change a few questions in the book, change some of the presentation of the material in the book (in most cases) and will reissue the book to universities. In turn, the university book stores then make the new and "improved" books part of your required book purchases, and thus validate the ridiculous practices of the book publishers.

One last note about the Universities' (apart from the bookstore) role in this situation... They also play a part in ensuring that students buy their books from the college bookstore instead of buying them from another store, or online. When you pay your tuition and fees, most people use loans or scholarships. For those students who get more scholarship money than they can use for tuition or those students who have loans that pay more than tuition each quarter, they get a refund about three weeks after school starts. So, if a student gets a $2000 dollar scholarship or loan each quarter, and his/her tuition and fees are only $1400, then that student will get a $600 refund check three or four weeks after school starts. This means that if that refund money is the only money the students expect to get, they'll have to wait three weeks into the quarter to get their books at another store. The other option the students have is to buy a "university debit card" with tuition and fees. You can put $2-300 dollars on your "university debit card" and use that money anywhere on campus, and buy your books at the university book store. That's the problem though, the students have two choices, either wait 3-4 weeks to buy books for reasonable prices (usually at the very least $15 below what the bookstore sells them for), or buy them from the bookstore before classes start. Obviously students are going to need their books for class immediately, so most students are forced to buy from the bookstore.

So, what is the solution to this problem? Pressure universities to stop buying new editions to books unless there are significant changes made to an old edition of a book. Encourage college bookstores to lower their prices. In addition, encourage universities to issue a temporary loan/scholarship refund, to students who wish to buy books off-campus at lower prices. This would allow students whose only extra money is from scholarships and loans to get cash to spend for immediate purchase of books for the first weeks of school. Promote a small loan from your school's SGA (Student Government Association) to students who would like to buy books elsewhere, but have to wait for loan/scholarship refunds. We're lucky enough to have one of these here at Tech, but noone knows about it.

Contact your SGA, or your favorite, irritable bookstore supervisor to voice your concerns.