Is there anyone else out there who’s as tired as I am of paying for overpriced books? How does a stack of paper, ink, and glue cost over $100? Is there gold dust in the pages?

Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate the Cerritos College Bookstore and all the services it provides. In fact, I’m glad it has started renting books to students who aren’t interested in shelling out large sums of money for something they may only need for a semester.

But with fees for what seems like just about everything except breathing– don’t hold your breath on that one, though, because the state is starved for cash and looking for any source of revenue it can find– I’ve just about had enough!

Several students here at Cerritos shared a similar sentiment in interviews I had with them last week:

“Rising costs and overcrowding discourage people from coming to school,” said anthropology major Jit Singh. “It’s all very stressful for students,” he added.

Vineet Jain, who is a business economics major, told me he had to pay $180 for a single book, and he purchased it online!

What is this madness!

I think it’s time we retire overpriced textbooks and look to more online material. Or for those who enjoy the musty smell of a dusty book, perhaps reading original sources is a better option.

Wouldn’t it be more productive for a student studying economics to actually read Adam Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations,” or for a philosophy class to study Plato’s “Republic,” than to constantly cram a large amount of information from a plethora of various sources that most of us forget on the last day of school? Besides, original sources can be found online for free, or purchased in any bookstore for under $10.

And how about all the back problems we get from lugging around 50 pounds of books everyday? Perhaps that’s why we have to pay a student health fee! Wouldn’t you much rather carry 2-pounds’-worth of classic literature?

Consider, also, how much money this would save the school! No more buying updated editions of textbooks, because original sources are never out of date! We refer to them all the time. In fact, textbooks are just a collection of excerpts from these original sources.

Either way, schools like Cerritos College should start exploring ways to lessen the burden on students who are already dealing with the hardships of an almost three-year-long economic recession.

And if you agree with Dr. Solomon Namala, who is an economics professor here at Cerritos College, you likely believe that we have a “long way to go” to recover from the doldrums of economic despair.

Let’s entreat our instructors, administrators, and student representatives to mull over this idea when it comes to planning for future semesters. I think we’d all like to give our bank accounts, and our spines, some well-deserved rest and relaxation.