Students should appreciate buyback

By CHRISTOPHER J. ORTIZ
The Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado State University

Anyone who has sold back their very expensive textbooks at the end of the semester to only receive a small percentage back knows of the resentment a lot of students have against the CSU Bookstore. It has almost become a bragging right to see who has been ripped off the most.
"I bought $400 worth and only got $120."
"Yeah, well I bought $320 worth of books and they didn't buy almost any of them back and the ones they did, I only got $10."
You have either heard people express their bitterness toward the bookstore or have uttered those kind of comments yourself.
While students are busy complaining about how little they got back on purchases they bought over four months ago, most don't realize how fortunate they are that they even have the option of getting a little or anything back on these books, these books they use or didn't use over the course of the semester.
John Parry, who has been the CSU Bookstore director for the past seven years, has plenty of experience of dealing with students who think that the bookstore is in the business of ripping students off. He explained to me the formula the bookstore uses when they buy back books from students (and no, they don't single you out to screw you over).
To make one thing clear: the bookstore doesn't decide which books they sell. The bookstore receives requests from professors and departments on which books will be on the shelves.
The bookstore buys back a book at the end of the semester if it is either going to be used again the following semester or if the bookstore can sell it to a textbook warehouse. If the bookstore has a request from a professor or department, for the most part, students will receive half of the new price of a textbook. So if you're returning a $100 organic chemistry book, the bookstore is going to give you $50. The bookstore then turns around and sells that same book on its shelf for 25 percent less than the new price; $75, to cover salary, rent, electricity and other overhead expenses.
Second scenario, the bookstore doesn't have a request from a department or professor for that chemistry book but a used textbook warehouse will buy it back from CSU. Parry said typically students will receive 10 to 30 percent of the new price if it is going to be sold to a warehouse. The percentage is lower because the warehouse is a middleman; they have to turn around and sell that chemistry book to a bookstore and make a profit.
Departments and professors have a deadline to submit textbook requests to the bookstore so that the bookstore has time to purchase new textbooks and so it knows which books to buy back from students. The deadline for the spring 2004 semester was Oct. 15. Parry said the bookstore usually receives 60 to 65 percent of requests by the deadline. If a professor turns in a request past the deadline, the bookstore might not have the time to buy back books from students and have to resort to a warehouse. The more requests Parry receives from departments and professors by the deadline, the better the buyback system works. Parry said when he started here, he was only receiving 10 percent of requests by the deadline. Getting 100 percent of requests turned in by the deadline is impossible, Parry said, but he noted that the buyback system is getting better.
One semester in 2001, the CSU Bookstore returned between $300,000 to $400,000 to students through the buyback program - that is 28,779 used books of which 12,680 where on the bookstore's shelves so students had a cheaper option than buying a new textbook. That is a lot of money returned back to students' pockets and a lot of used textbooks for students to buy.
Students should maybe be grateful that they get something back from those pesky textbooks and stop complaining the typical college student complaint of "someone is trying to screw me over." I know how disappointing it is to have spent so much money on textbooks but then to walk away with barely anything. I am a history major and history professors have an unwritten minimum number of five books for any class.
When you find yourself in the buyback line and you're thumbing through the pages of that psychology textbook with so much knowledge and information inside and you're disappointed by the amount the bookstore wants for it, remember you do have the option of keeping it.

Chris is a senior majoring in technical journalism and history. He is the opinion editor for The Collegian.