Christine del Castillo Corsair

Hmm, this situation looks all too familiar. It happens each and every year, slowly eating away the financial futures of millions of college students nationwide, like a parasite. Every time students complain about it, teachers ignore it. This plague that empties the pockets of each college student is none other than the astronomically high prices for books, books that are essential in pursuing a quality education.

Truly, this is greed in one of its worst forms. Simply for the acquisition of knowledge, publishers and sometimes teachers place an extraordinary high price tag.

Logistically these people are simply taking advantage of densely populated cities, full of individuals who are hungry for better lives and jobs - things that can only be attained through education and knowledge via textbooks.

We encourage the youth to read as early as possible, we tell parents to teach their kids the alphabet as soon as they can make sounds - for what? So those kids can become hungry for knowledge and therefore perfectly fit into scheme of paying thousands of dollars yearly for JUST THE BOOKS! Tuition, fees and bills stack up to nearly incomprehensible numbers on their own.

Luckily those kids won't have to grow into a world were there is only one option for books, books that contain the essence of their futures in the American culture.

Thanks to the Internet and overseas trading, college textbooks are now available at nearly half price. Even though this seems like a quick solution to high domestic prices, it takes too long to receive materials from England .

Ultimately, college administrators and student government should address the subject for the sake of the people they serve: the students, not the publishers.

Schools brush this issue under the rug and leave the student body out in the cold. Thankfully, to alleviate some of the blood sucking, our Associated Students and campus clubs have been taking steps each year to help students sell and buy used books through several book exchanges.

Perhaps, to permanently solve the problem here at home, the campus bookstore should consider setting up a more efficient online system of purchasing and exchanging books. This way of running a bookstore may alleviate some overhead costs and make books cheaper to SMC students.