Dear Editor:
It is quite terrifying to see the price sticker on textbooks these days. Being in the doctoral program has the satisfying advantage of not buying that many books, and I cannot imagine being an undergraduate student having to buy books costing upwards of $100 semester after semester. Back home in India, buying books was the least of our concerns in an academic year, and most of us could find the latest editions on loan from the school "book bank." Even the cost of used books seems exorbitant here. House bill 4867 seems very nominal in its approach and I have absolute faith that it would barely make a dent in the annual textbook spending. What is required is an active effort on the part of our schools to subsidize textbook prices in some manner. Professors should research more and pick up a book that not only provides the suitable content for the course, but also would not make you curse on the way out of the Student Center.
Raheel Ahmad
graduate student studying computer engineering and computer science
