An article in today’s New York Times, How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks mentions new federal laws about the sale of textbooks that started July 1. The two important rules I noted were that publishers must sell items individually if they also sell items in bundles, and students have to be provided the ISBN numbers of the books that would be used in the courses for which they were registering.  Well, in recently trying to find a computer science course, I saw that the bookstore was charging $86 for a copy of a technology book that was seven years old. I’ve overpaid for textbooks at our bookstore like all of you, but I’ve never seen such an obvious scamming of students in the way that Follett was charging for a used, out of date technology book. I sent this letter to our new President, Mitchel Wallerstein, this afternoon:

Dear President Wallerstein,

In trying to look up textbooks for the classes that are supposed to start in three short weeks, I found that the bookstore still did not have the texts available on their website for the fall semester.

Interestingly, in today’s New York Times, there is an article that mentions a new Federal Law that says I should have the ISBNs of the textbooks available to me for all the classes I can register for, effective July 1, 2010.

You can imagine how frustrated I am to be unable to find Baruch in compliance with this new Federal Law.

Interestingly, for one course I was considering taking, I looked up the book that the previous section used. It was a computer science course related to database applications and the textbook was for Microsoft Access 2003. The “textbook”, now seven years old, is selling at our bookstore for $86. I say “textbook” because a book related to a piece of software that is two versions and seven years old does not qualify as a textbook for a course in an American college in 2010 about technology. The only reason there are 56 copies available on Amazon.com in the price range of 1 penny and $20 is because nobody has any interest in buying the book and the other 50,000 people who have copies to sell have just thrown the book away! It obviously needs to be said that the school has no business taking the money of unwitting young people for such “education”, and it makes a mockery of the school for granting three credits in the study of such antiquated technology. What in the world is going on at Baruch College?

Please investigate and clear up these issues as quickly as possible.

Robert Reale, [repeatedly embarrassed] Senior

Fellow Baruch students, I hope there is an answer for us soon.  Please feel free to comment on this post and/or email the Baruch College President at mitchel.wallerstein@baruch.cuny.edu.