2008 Woodie Awards
Textbooks empty the bank
By Amy Kelly
Rocket News Editor
Issue date: 1/20/06 Section: Opinion
A new semester is here yet again, and this means it's time to dish out the cash for more books. Now this would not be a problem if everyone had the money for books, or even knew if they were going to be using the books. College students are not the most financially stable people. There are a few exceptions, like when you can get the money from your parents, but what about the students who pay for books out of their own pockets?
Most students have somewhat of a job, whether it is sitting at a desk at 2 a.m. or keeping score for a volleyball game. However, minimum wage really doesn't go far. According to some Slippery Rock students you never really have time for a job. When you have five or six classes a semester, along with activities and somewhat of a social life, when do you find the time to work?
Another factor that plays in is that Slippery Rock is so small. You have a total of three main businesses in the town: Sheetz, McDonald's and Subway. Since these are the only main places they are overrun with students trying to get jobs, making it difficult to find a decent job to provide a little more than minimum wage.
Typically every class has at least one book, but some may have two to four. Some may be previously used books and that normally run from $20-$50. This, however, does not apply if you are talking about science books. With the understanding that science changes day-to-day, new editions of the books come out all the time. This makes the old books harder to sell back at the end of the semester, and for some reason they only make science books big, heavy and with hard covers.
Slippery Rock sophomore Jamie Mech said he spent hard-earned money on a book he hardly used.
"I had to pay over $100 for a General Biology book that I never used," he said, "and then when going to sell it back I did not receive anything for it. The book simply was of no more use."
When things like this occur, students do not even want to go buy the books for fear of never opening them and wasting a lot of money.
Bookstores such as Barnes and Noble or Borders do supply text books, and sometimes at cheaper prices than the SGA Bookstore. What happens if they do not have the ones that you need? It becomes easier to just order them from the SGA Bookstore.
The bookstore isn't necessarily at fault, though. It is obvious that the professors need to take into consideration, when picking out books, that students are on a fixed income, and would like to use their money instead of it sitting on a shelf losing value as time goes on.
Most students have somewhat of a job, whether it is sitting at a desk at 2 a.m. or keeping score for a volleyball game. However, minimum wage really doesn't go far. According to some Slippery Rock students you never really have time for a job. When you have five or six classes a semester, along with activities and somewhat of a social life, when do you find the time to work?
Another factor that plays in is that Slippery Rock is so small. You have a total of three main businesses in the town: Sheetz, McDonald's and Subway. Since these are the only main places they are overrun with students trying to get jobs, making it difficult to find a decent job to provide a little more than minimum wage.
Typically every class has at least one book, but some may have two to four. Some may be previously used books and that normally run from $20-$50. This, however, does not apply if you are talking about science books. With the understanding that science changes day-to-day, new editions of the books come out all the time. This makes the old books harder to sell back at the end of the semester, and for some reason they only make science books big, heavy and with hard covers.
Slippery Rock sophomore Jamie Mech said he spent hard-earned money on a book he hardly used.
"I had to pay over $100 for a General Biology book that I never used," he said, "and then when going to sell it back I did not receive anything for it. The book simply was of no more use."
When things like this occur, students do not even want to go buy the books for fear of never opening them and wasting a lot of money.
Bookstores such as Barnes and Noble or Borders do supply text books, and sometimes at cheaper prices than the SGA Bookstore. What happens if they do not have the ones that you need? It becomes easier to just order them from the SGA Bookstore.
The bookstore isn't necessarily at fault, though. It is obvious that the professors need to take into consideration, when picking out books, that students are on a fixed income, and would like to use their money instead of it sitting on a shelf losing value as time goes on.
