A college education’s pinc gets more painful

No one on this editorial board is so far removed from college that we don’t recall what seemed to be the high cost of everything on campus — especially textbooks.

We all remember shelling out big bucks at the student store to pay for a pile of books that promised to improve our brains while exercising our shoulders and backs. And we remember tough talk from students and some professors who wanted to do something about it the books’ high prices.

Now professors across the country are trying to do something about it by signing a letter asking a major publishing company to step up and solve the problem.

Whether the issue is really about the publishing industry trying to gouge the college students of America (or their parents) or a harsh lesson in the law of supply and demand, coughing up $80 for a book is no small matter for someone living off Top Ramen. Add to that the fact that many students don’t finish school in four years because of the high demand for classes, as well as the spiraling cost of tuition, and getting an education can seem more like a burden than an opportunity on the path to the American dream. Who hasn’t heard horror stories about the level of debt most young people take with them when they graduate?

Whatever a person’s opinion on the "right" to a college education, students are paying for more and more of that public college education on their own. The danger, as local community college leaders have pointed out, is that more students could be painted out of the picture, particularly minorities and students from low-income families. That would have a devastating impact on our colleges, universities and our workforce.

Even as the Legislature wrestles with a tight budget, it must do more to ease the burdensome cost of higher education.

Meanwhile, struggling students, with the help of some sympathetic professors, will look for ways to pinch pennies here and there — even lobbying publishers to ease the pain of the $80 textbook.

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