UNCW is a nice and fine university. It may not be as "big time" as the Carolinas, the N.C. States, or the Dukes, but when it comes to the price of books, they sure as hell do a good job of competing. Even though I'm a student-athlete and my books are free, I understand how many of you feel about the ridiculous prices placed on these stacks of paper. These prices are very unfair to the students.
II. Need Without a doubt there are numerous reasons these outstanding prices should be dropped. For one thing you can tell the difference between an old book and a new book. Obviously our bookstore thinks we're a bunch of idiots. They try and sell old books at similar prices of new ones. So even if you did purchase an old book, you still would end up paying a lot of money. At the present time we are in a no win situation.
Secondly, after being behind in class, waiting on financial aid checks to get here so many of us can finally purchase our books and get caught up in class--many of the times teachers don't even use a lot of the material in the books. It all turns out to be a waste of time and a waste of money.
And after a long semester, we look to sell our books back. You really feel screwed when you only get 30 bucks back for a $65 book that is still in top-notch condition. According to our Student Handbook and Code of Student Life, "50% of current selling price will be offered providing the bookstore can use the book the following semester. Should the bookstore be unable to purchase your book at these terms, a wholesale price will be offered." In other words they will give you what they think the book is worth. Just think of the profit bookstores are making and what you are losing. At this point of time most of us are trying to recover from the tremendous amount of money we spent on books and try to sell them back to get books for the upcoming term. No matter how much we sell the for, we will never get close to the full amount back.
III. Solution The only solutions to this problem are UNCW should allow its students to either rent books or to lower the price of purchase. It seems that the leaders of our university think "university" first. They make tons of money off of campus events, tuition--which continues to increase year after year, and don't forget about parking fines. They will write you a ticket for being in a 15 minute parking space for 16 minutes. They come up with all kinds of ways to make money. You already have to worry about an expensive tuition, then you have to pay $105 for a parking decal. Next year you will probably have to pay to park your bike or maybe even your skateboard.
IV. Conclusion The price of books is out of hand. Selling old books close to the price of new books is totally unfair. And if professors place certain books on syllabuses, then they should be covered over the class term. And I don't see why we can't get at least 80% of our money back for our books if they are in good condition.
As a student and customer of this university, we must acknowledge this matter. Chancellor Leutze says "we are the souls of this university," but it seems that we are the financial sources also.
Stan Simmons, SAS0184@uncwil.edu