(no subject)
I don’t often get upset. Hearing about some things in the news, along with recent activities associated with a new quarter of school have brought be to a state of great agitation. The two events that brought me to this state are Congress’s recent subpoena of MLB players and coaches and the general hearings about steroid use in baseball, as well as my recent purchase of hundreds of dollars of textbooks. I see these two activities as both being complete misallocation of many valuable dollars.
First off, why does congress feel the need to use its time investigating a situation that the MLB association is starting to take care of internally? Do they feel that spending federal dollars to make themselves look righteous in the anti-drug arena will improve their chances of re-election? How dare they waste their time on such petty issues that many believe are getting under control. Don’t take my word for it. San Diego general manager Kevin Towers said, "The testing program has some teeth now, and it seems to be working”. How about they spend their time investigating something that will save my generation thousands of dollars per year: non-stop textbook price increases.
What congress should really address is the fact that the average UC student spends approximately $5000 on textbooks in 4 years. That’s about 2-3 months of my rent per year. That amount could be greatly reduced if students didn’t have to buy the newest edition of the same old textbook year after year. Right now, I can’t even sell my physics textbook back to the bookstore because the school is using a different textbook. Why, you might ask? Probably because the publisher has decided to rearrange the material, change page numbers, add or remove examples and earn millions in profits from college students. And they get away with it.
How do they get away with it? Well, it’s simple. Year after year publishers have been issuing ‘new’ and ‘updated’ textbooks at higher prices, coincidentally forcing students to buy the newest version. Professors require the newest versions of these books because there is no guarantee that there will be enough used copies of the old ‘outdated’ texts. But what makes a basic, introductory physic’s textbook outdated? Has Newtonian physics changed? Is the earth a different size? Has the force of gravity reversed directions? NO! The only reason they issue a new version is to guarantee their huge profits keep growing.
I’m getting off track.
I meant to say something about what congress should really spend their time on. It’s a selfish argument really. They should spend their time protecting me, the semi-average student with just enough financial backing to get through college with the help of parents and the use of nickels and dimes that I’ve collected as spare change throughout my life. Instead of continuing a war that takes hundreds of lives of people about my age, why doesn’t congress spend a little more time protecting the people that this country will be relying on for the next 30 years? I believe that congress has a duty to not only protect the rights of my country, but also the duty to protect me from unfair expenses that could easily be avoided if publishers only released new text books when new material was available.
In conclusion, I believe that many members of congress are misguided. Instead of trying to jump on the anti-drug bandwagon and increase their popularity, they should increase their interest in students. Instead of investigating a problem that should have been taken care of 5 to 10 years ago that less than 5% of current MLB is currently involved in, they should focus on the millions of college students financially being taken advantage of by publishers. I know this is a selfish issue to be concerned with, but does it concern only me? No. Please help me do something about this, and let your voice be heard.