Let me get this straight.
I, along with every other student here, am paying more than $7,000 in student fees and more than $12,000 to live in the residence halls. And now you want me to pay $150 for a course reader that is essentially a lot of copied pages held together by semi-decent binding. And I can’t even return it at the end of the quarter and get a little money back?
Screw that.
You’ve probably held a very similar feeling. The course-reader era has taken over this university without any sort of check or balance and is wreaking havoc on the student body. As a means of review, let us discuss some very apparent problems in the course-reader system.
First, the very structure of the course-reader system is monopolistic by nature. Because the professor, and solely the professor, puts together the course reader, there is no way to find some sort of substitute. Even though there are a few course-reader stores in Westwood, every specific course reader is only at one store, allowing that store to set the price without any sort of competition.
While established textbooks are drastically overpriced at the textbook store, at least that same book can be bought on Amazon.com for a cheaper price and then sold back for more profit. The idea that store owners can set their own prices without any type of challenge from the consumer is simply unethical and unfair. This is not to say the course-reader stores are necessarily scamming students., but rather, that their monopolistic nature is wrong.
A simple answer to this problem is to have the same course readers at all the course-reader stores. This would drive prices down for students because the competing stores would no longer have a monopoly on their product.
However, stemming from this problem is the notion that the primary factor in several professors’ participation is the owning of the class course reader (taken from one of my own art history syllabuses). If a student checks out the books that compose the course reader from the library, he or she could still potentially be marked down for his or her unwillingness to fork over hundreds of their (or their parents’) hard-earned money.
This is not to place blame on the TAs or the professors. However, the practice of forcing students to buy something that is nonreturnable and impossible to find in a library, and then basing their grades partially on this purchase, is once again unethical.
One cheap solution to this problem is simply reusing course readers. The content of most subjects is pretty set in stone within certain time periods, yet departments force students to always buy fresh new course readers. This is similar to the way they constantly force students to buy new editions of textbooks. News flash guys, the content of physics really doesn’t change too much. You’re scamming the students for an extra buck. However, selling course readers back could allow students some type of return for their purchases.
Additionally, for classes using content that is not copyrighted and even with some material that is, professors could post the material online. For example, in my Philosophy 6 class last spring, Professor A.J. Julius posted three different readings for his students online with no charge. Several old texts are now available online, and to force students to buy these texts is ridiculous.
With the current failing economy and tuition costs rising three times faster than the inflation rate, a student making $9 an hour is going to have a very difficult time trying to help his parents with the financial burden that is college. Please, departments and professors, do what you can to help relieve this burden and do all you can to make learning affordable. The course-reader monopoly is a weight we students simply can no longer bear.
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If you are grieved and upset, then e-mail Bromberg at mbromberg@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.