Justice for textbook makers

By Josh Friesen, Sports Editor

textbooks_Raymond

I don’t think these textbook companies are doing enough to swindle college students out of hundreds of dollars per quarter. Sure, they have these online codes that cost $80 and expire after a year. Sure, they print these books in hardcover and full color, causing the printing costs to go through the roof. Sure, they shell out a new edition every other year that forces students to buy their books new instead of used.

But come on, textbook companies. Take off those cash-lined, diamond-encrusted ear muffs and start thinking with some sort of originality. There have to be some marketing wizards over there scheming up ways to extort more money out of these students. We all know how well-off they all are, with their beady eyes, shiny cars and expensive tastes for Keystone Light. After all, textbook companies really are the 99 percent.

Perhaps you can charge students 10 bucks every time they turn the page. No one has ever thought of that before. Maybe limit each book to five pages per day, and if the student wants more college knowledge, they have to pay extra.

Why are you waiting so long to churn out a new edition? If you put out a new edition every few weeks, you’ll be lining your pockets with the cash of all these opulent college students. You would not have to do a whole lot. You could simply recycle the same material from the previous edition and stick it into a new book. Besides, isn’t that what textbook companies are doing anyway?

What are you thinking allowing students to sell their books back to their university bookstore? You are practically throwing money away by allowing these heartless, greedy bastards to diabolically sell their books back at a fraction of what it costs to buy them. I think there should be a microchip in each textbook that can detect when the students’ classes are over. When the quarter ends, the textbook would explode. Heck, by now, textbook companies are making so much money they could literally hire William Shatner to burst into the room whenever that happened just to point and belittle the student.

Maybe instead of making a textbook for a physics class, you should force each student to purchase their very own NASA engineer at $250 per hour. How innovative! Boy howdy, isn’t making money fun?