What is the point of publishing the same book year after year, and changing a few words and then calling it a new edition? ?The point is for publishing companies to make money. ?

If students have to buy new textbooks every semester, instead of being able to buy them used from other students, it can cost the average student up to $1,200 a year just in books.

It doesn’t make much sense for students to be paying as much as four times the money on books as they pay for tuition. ?

This is what 44th District Assembly Member Carol Liu, D-La Canana Flintridge, is looking into at the request of Pasadena City College students. ?

Liu is the chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. She feels that there might not be much room for improvement on textbook prices because the main problem is the publishers.

Publishers think that they are making good money off students, when in fact they are hindering many people from getting an education. ?

Even students who get financial aid cannot always pay for all their books. ? Liu has been holding hearings on the issue at the request of the students of Pasadena City College.

Surveys were distributed to publishers and some responses have been received, but many publishers have asked for more time to respond. ???The conclusions of the hearings and the surveys will be available from Liu’s office at a later date.

Publishers are not the only ones marking up the prices of the textbooks. ?The college bookstores have to make their profits, too. ?

Bakersfield College’s bookstore marks its textbooks up 26 percent from the publisher’s price, according to Bob Day, bookstore director. ?If you luck out and the book is going to be used again, the bookstore will buy it back from you for half of what you paid for it. ?

If it won’t be used the next semester, it will give you one fifth of the price. ?

California State University, Bakersfield also marks up its textbooks by 25 percent, according to a bookstore spokesperson. It also has a buy back policy.

Many students have probably found that it is much cheaper to buy the books used, or even to order them on the Internet. ?

Buying my textbooks online, as opposed to buying them at the campus bookstore, cut my expenses by almost 50 percent.

When publishers are being questioned by state officials, it’s time for them to start pricing books reasonably.

The same can be said for college bookstores.