As a business near Marquette’s campus, Sweeney’s College Books should operate knowing the financial burden placed on students to purchase textbooks and relax its return policies accordingly.

Last semester, Danny McKevitt, a senior in the College of Business, was charged $903.56 after returning four rented textbooks to Sweeney’s one day past the deadline. Clearly, his situation was not handled with the ideal sort of understanding one would hope for.

A small business like Sweeney’s has responsibilities to its suppliers, but it should also be held accountable for the well-being of its community – which, in this case, happens to be made up of Marquette students, many of whom struggle to afford pricey textbooks in the first place. Students’ voices are left out of the equation when it comes to textbook pricing.

Sweeney’s needs to recognize the effect of soaring textbook prices on its customers and community partners, and do its best to alleviate unnecessary fees when they are incurred under reasonable circumstances for both parties.

We recognize the dollar value of textbooks is mostly out of Sweeney’s control. Replacement costs are so expensive because the textbook publishers set prices so high in the first place.  Then, when marginally updated editions are released with an even higher price tag, the buyback value of previous editions diminishes as well. The handling of these issues is left to federal regulation, where small steps have been taken with legislation like the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

It is understandable that Sweeney’s and BookMarq implement late fees and replacement costs to keep their stores operating efficiently. Bookstores profit a mere 3.7 percent off each textbook sale, according to the National Association of College Stores. More than three-fourths of the sale profit is sent directly to publishers to cover costs, so at the bookstore level, not much can be done about the high prices.

Bookstores must remember they do not operate in a typical market, where the buyer’s demand for a particular product provides them with some control over the price. The purchasers – in this case, students – are not the ones selecting the materials; it is up to professors to determine which materials are best suited for their courses.

In McKevitt’s situation, Sweeney’s textbook replacement policy seems arbitrary, given he arrived with the physical books to go back on the shelves just one day later. A more appropriate solution would have been for Sweeney’s to accept the rented textbooks when they arrived in store the next day, assessing whatever reasonable late fee a revised, responsible store policy deemed necessary. Following through on a policy to collect the full replacement costs of the books from a student one day after the deadline is excessive and insensitive to the customers who keep Sweeney’s in business.

With such incidents, bookstores like Sweeney’s should work in the interest of its customers rather than its suppliers.

Both Sweeney’s and BookMarq have done well to lessen at least some of that burden from students by providing the option to rent textbooks or purchase them used, while students also have the option of obtaining textbooks elsewhere.

From any reasonable standpoint, returning rented materials less than 24 hours late in their proper condition is not worth paying $903.56 to replace them. Repurchasing the textbooks seems counterintuitive, considering they were sitting on Sweeney’s counter the next day.

The role of publishers aside, campus bookstores should make it their responsibility to represent not only their own voice, but the voices of students purchasing books when it comes to textbook pricing. This gives stores like Sweeney’s and BookMarq a chance to lighten the costs placed on students and foster a healthy relationship between a business and its customers.