Does anybody have an idea why it would cost $40 to rent a graduation gown ($45 for Ph.D.s) for graduation congregations at UBC? Do they buy new gowns every year? Does PlantOps do the dry cleaning and charge out at exorbitant prices? Or does the bookstore just enjoy f**king people over? In 2002 there were 8104 grads, lets assume that 3/4 of those people attend graduation. 8104*3/4 * $40 = approximately $240,000. To me that seems a bit excessive. Where is all that money going?
Posted by bforsyth at October 12, 2004 11:25 AMIt took you this long to realize that the Bookstore inflates prices?
The money goes into the UBC-wide "no matter how much money we make, we'll still have to raise tuition next year" fund.
You'll also notice that textbooks are 10% more expensive than Amazon (even after adding shipping costs) and Apple products sell for a few bucks more than the Educational price on Apple's web site.
Posted by: tim at October 13, 2004 12:26 PMcertain people i knew would buy their textbooks, go home, go back the next day, grab the same texts off the shelves and then return them. i never had the nerve to do it but wish i had. $140 for 100 page text on matrix algebra that we used for not even half of the semester? grrrr.
Posted by: mike at October 29, 2004 02:09 PM