Dear Textbooks:
Let me begin by telling you straight up that there is no reason for you to be this expensive. With all due respect, the majority of college students barely have enough money to pay for routine Starbucks coffee runs and other essentials. What makes you think that we have hundreds of dollars every semester to make it rain on you? You’re not that special. The joy of learning is a motive but it is heavily compromised by the cost. The passion for education swiftly vanishes every time we swipe our credit cards and see our balances, eyes glistening with fresh tears and defeat.
There is, furthermore, the issue with the University Bookstore’s buyback ludicrous. How is it in any way right for us to pay a total of 456 dollars and get back, at maximum, 20 dollars and a piece of lint? When we curiously ask “are you sure that ‘s all the book sells for?” the cashier is sympathetic towards our pain but there is nothing he can do besides shrug his flannel-clad shoulders, glance at us and say “I know, it sucks.” Yes, textbooks, it most certainly does. I mean, gee wiz, thanks for the money to get two rounds of Chipotle I guess?
Don’t even get me started on the issue of the whether or not the textbook is even a necessary purchase for the class. We’ve all been there, frantically seeking out the eleventh edition of the critical and “required” reading for English lit or organic chemistry. False. It is not required. It is helpful, of course, but joke is on the spender. What’s that? A PDF for free on Learn@UW with identical content? Well, thanks for telling us, Professor X. Adios 138 dollars.
It’s not like I worked 30 hours a week at Forever 21 to be able to pay for college or anything. It’s not like you took my much needed savings and threw them in the garbage with my woes.
Thank you for incessantly ensuring my monetary decline and making me shamefully but faithfully trek to the University Bookstore in the Arctic temperatures. I really appreciate you taking my money and sanity.
Coldest regards,
An irritated student