Muller: Norris goods are bad for your bank account
January 27, 2013
$95.97: the price of a TI-83 calculator from both Amazon and Wal-Mart. The same calculator at the Norris Bookstore? $119.98. How about the silver edition TI-84? That’ll cost $124.97 at Wal-Mart, but a full $174.98 at Norris. Those are just calculators; I don’t even want to get into textbooks, room supplies and $70 hoodies.
I don’t want to complain, and Norris provides students with plenty of essential products, such as baby booties, but after I just spent more than $300 on supplies at the book store this quarter, things officially got real. Now, Daily staffers have already discussed some of the sinister ways that Northwestern robs you blind, so we shouldn’t be surprised. And yet, this process of semi-legitimate exploitation never ceases to amaze me.
Running a university is expensive — I understand and appreciate that. However, that’s why we pay $50,000 annually in tuition, and why we’re expected to donate pretty much continuously once we graduate. Northwestern students — all students really — pay to take part in higher education, but they shouldn’t pay out the nose for the additional required supplies to continue that education. When you go to a restaurant to pay for your meal, you don’t pay another $15 for it to be served on a plate and $20 for the rights to use the silverware. Likewise, when you pay to attend class, you shouldn’t be robbed for access to the supplies required to succeed in them.
Even worse, Norris is often the only provider of certain supplies. If you don’t like their textbook prices, you can usually buy them at Beck’s (you can all breathe easy knowing I did just that. How you like them apples, Norris?), but often that option is impractical. Worse, sometimes they’re the only provider for used books or rentals, different inks and, of course, graphing calculators within walking distance. Consequently, if you need something now, you’re going to Norris.
It’s tempting to use this unique position to charge uncompetitive prices for your goods, but usually that’ll result in general disdain and more than one flaming bag of dog poop on your doorstep. Whoever is responsible for the pricing at Norris either has somehow been spared this treatment or doesn’t understand basic social interaction (my money’s on the first, but you never know). Either way, it doesn’t make those actions appropriate.
Northwestern has the responsibility to provide for its students — that’s what institutions of higher education do. It’d be one thing if this was a for-profit school, but the second you classify yourself as a 501(c)(3) organization, as Northwestern has, your exclusive goal must be to provide educational services in a way that most benefits society. Profiting off the needs of the very people who you claim to be servicing is diametrically opposed to the stated goals of an educational non-profit.
This school continues to take their thousands of students, pick them up by the ankles and shake every penny out of their pockets. When they do this by charging $181 to replace a lost room key that the student originally got for free, or when they don’t let you use your meal swipes at Norris or any cash-based NU dining option without upgrading to a more expensive option, it’s frustrating, but excusable. When they do this by forcing on-campus residents — a category including almost all freshmen, who don’t yet have other housing options — to pay for blatantly overpriced meal plans, or by overcharging for required school supplies, it’s disgraceful.
Now, let me be clear. I’m not saying that Northwestern should subsidize their supplies and take on some cost — which could certainly be argued. I’m just saying that they shouldn’t profit more than companies like Target or Wal-Mart do by selling the very same supplies. Otherwise, there might soon be a growing demand for brown paper bags. Just don’t buy them at Norris; that place is a rip-off.
Yoni Muller is a Weinberg sophomore. He can be reached at jonathanmuller2015@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, email a Letter to the Editor to forum@dailynorthwestern.com.
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I HATE the Daily Northwestern and think the forum generally stinks, but this is one of the wisest things I've seen published here and you've got a legitimate point. I have felt on NUMEROUS occasions like I'd been taken behind a tree, in plain sight, and abused by Norris Bookstore - for a few years now. Amazon is a good friend of mine, but when things get serious it can be a bit jarring to spend that kind of money on things as overpriced as what Norris Bookstore offers. I suggest you take the time to do an investigative report on why they think they can shove their hands so forcefully into our pockets.
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Ben Reply:
January 28th, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Barnes and Noble owns our campus's bookstore and hundreds more at other colleges/universities. There's no investigation here, it's the simple difference between shopping at Barnes and Noble and shopping on Amazon. The real villains here are the textbook publishers. B+N/amazon, and others have agreements with these publishers to charge $XXX.XX per book. Also, these publishers get away with introducing new, slightly-different editions of textbooks every few years, forcing students to shell out hundreds on essentially the same product as the much-cheaper earlier editions.
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daily hater Reply:
January 28th, 2013 at 8:02 pm
How do you explain the occasional book from B&N that's cheaper than Norris? I didn't even mention the fact that you pay $3.50 for ONE slice of cheese pizza that tastes like steamed toilet paper and $1.69 for a bottle of Coke at the C-Store while the Coca-Cola vending machines charge $1.50. The calculators sold at Norris are also not "recent publications"; neither are the overpriced pens, sweatshirts, notebooks and dorm supplies. Don't be such a contrarian.
I'm just sayin, if the afternoon news can waste 10 minutes with these dinky little "investigations" into daily irritants, the Daily could do something interesting like that too.
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This entire piece is based on one very flawed piece of information: Northwestern DOES NOT OWN the Norris Bookstore. I'm not sure how you managed to walk into the bookstore and not notice the Nooks being sold, or the Barnes and Noble brand advertisements. You also managed to provide direct links to northwestern.BNCOLLEGE.com, which has a big B&N college logo at the bottom of each page, and yet you conclude that Northwestern owns the bookstore. This is extremely poor researching, and when your entire article is based on a flawed premise that could have been avoided with 5 seconds of research, it's a huge problem.
You also confuse what the phrase "non-profit institution" means. Northwestern makes profit. This is a fact. What the non-profit classification refers to is that for tax purposes only, we are categorized as a non-profit. Again, a little bit of research could have prevented this.
Norris is NOT the only place within walking distance that sells graphing calculators. Radio Shack (just south of CVS) sells graphing calculators. You can get a TI-84 Plus for less than $120 there, it's a little bit worse than the TI-84 Plus Silver but considering it's $55 less than the Norris price, I'd say it's worth it. Again, it's frustrating that you did not bother to spend a few seconds to search for electronics stores within walking distance of campus.
The reason students have to pay $181 for a replacement room key if they lose it is because Northwestern has to hire a locksmith to come in and replace the lock on the room so some sketchy dude doesn't find a lost key and break into your room/dorm. That's not cheap. This is one of the least-ripoff services that Northwestern offers, and it ensures that its students are safe. I really don't think you can fault efforts to keep students safe as unnecessarily expensive, especially when they're offered pretty much at-cost.
Do you know how this University really robs us? By increasing the cost of tuition at a larger-than-inflation rate. From 2009-2013, tuition increased by 13.9%, while inflation increased prices by only 6.5%. If tuition price-increases accurately reflected inflation rate, we would be paying $2,500 less for tuition every year than we are now.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
http://www.northwestern.edu/sfs/tuition/tuition_rates.html
If you're upset that you have to spend an extra $100 a quarter at the not-university-owned-bookstore, you should be livid that you have to spend an unnecessary $800+ a quarter on tuition! Anyway, sorry if this comes across as harsh, just do your research on future articles. You do attend a top-12 University after all.
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felllow troll Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Wow Ben, someone's daddy has been complaining about having to pay his tuition and now he wants to whine whine whine/repeat repeat repeat whatever Daddy says.
Go grab yourself a pair of designer frame glasses and read the rest of the article
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Well said. Need more on this from the Daily. So many things sold by Northwestern are priced in ways that are indefensible.
Keep writing about this!
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