Selling Textbooks Back

Hopefully I don't get in trouble for this, but I've got a bone to pick with the BYU Bookstore. Every semester I buy new textbooks for my classes and after every semester I go and sell them back to the bookstore.

These last two semesters, however, (maybe more) I've noticed that the bookstore gives back very little for what I originally bought. Today when I went in and slapped down my pile of 8 or so textbooks, the nice lady pulls the first one off the stack and says "Okay, we will buy that one for 3 dollars."

Immediately it feels like I've been punched in the gut. I swear I paid $30 for that at the beginning of the semester! So, I kept my anger in check and let her take the book. I probably should've kept it and sold it online somehow.

The next one she picks up she offers me $1. I bite my lip and stop her for a moment. "What was this book originally worth, ma'am?"

"Oh, it looks like it was... $18.95." She smiles at me.

I smile back. "Yeah.... That's a lot more than what you're offering me."

She shrugs and says "Yeah I know, crazy huh? It's always so little!"

At this point I've decided this lady is either pure evil and enjoys stealing money from college students or she actually has no power over what amount of money is exchanged over these books. It's probably the latter, but my anger for this lady made me put her in the evil section.

The next book didn't even register on their accounts. She gives me the excuse of "Oh, sometimes the professor no longer wants it for the class, or maybe there is a new edition or we have too many already or something so we no longer accept them."

Okay....at this point I was clenching my fists. Teachers don't even use them anymore? Well, why the heck did they have them in the first place?? They realized that none of their students actually read them?? And goodness does a new edition really matter that much? Since they changed a few typos here or took out a page??

And oh... there's too many? How could you possibly have too many books if you sold that many, to begin with? How is that even possible??

She picks up the next book that I know I paid over $100 for. She scans it and smiles bigger at me and says "Ooh! This one will go for $32! See now that just makes the trip worth it doesn't it?"

I'm pretty sure my eye twitched at her and through my gritted teeth I said "Yeah... sure... cause I sure didn't pay over a $100 for that... totally worth it."

Then I stalked off, taking the sympathy chocolate they were handing out at the end of the line.

I don't get it. I'm probably completely uneducated when it comes to the BYU Bookstores money making, but it sure seems to me that they are stealing a butt-load of money from students. We pay all this money to get the books, then sell it back and get a very minimal amount back. Then they turn around and sell those books again for the same amount we bought it for, if not more!! Are they seriously not making enough already with their $60 sweatshirts??

Point is, this seems like an injustice, and maybe we need to do a little bit more research on what the heck the bookstore is doing with all that money they are making off of textbooks.