Course packets prove not only to be a heavy load in students' backpacks, but also on their wallets. The way campus vendors determine packet prices sheds light on the costs, revealing what students actually pay for when purchasing materials.
ASM Student Print is a non-profit organization run out of Memorial Union, where Isaac Perkins, the Human Resources Director, said prices are minimal because of reduced overhead costs.
The actual printing of one page of an ASM press packet, including ink, paper and labor costs is six cents per page. ASM press produces 53 different packets at this rate. The most expensive is a $32.50 political science packet.
Underground Textbook Exchange, 664 State St., sells approximately 75 course packets at five and a half cents per photocopied page, according to Manager Troy Gerkey.
\When we first set our price at five and a half cents five years ago, that was the cheapest price of anyone off-campus,"" Gerkey said.
Bob's Copy Shop, 37 University Square, sells more than 100 different packets and does not quote a cents-per-page rate. The price is a function of the number of students in a class multiplied by the number of pages in that class' packet. The price is then marked up to cover overhead, according to owner Roger Hlavacka.
""We're more than student press, because we are for profit,"" he explained.
Brandon Gramoll, Regent of the professional engineering fraternity Theta Tau, claimed Bob's mark-up is nearly 100 percent in some cases, according to research his frat conducted while preparing to print its own mechanical engineering packet.
""We went to Kinko's and actually ended up being less than what it would have cost if we went to ASM student press,"" Gramoll said, whose frat sold course packets for mechanical engineering classes as a fundraiser.
It set up in the lobby of Engineering Hall the first week of school, selling the three types of packets it printed, ranging in price from $5 to $30.
Theta Tau was able to produce especially cheap packets because the material was written by professors, therefore having no royalty fees.
""They'll give it to Bob's because he'll print it and sell it and the professors don't have to worry about trying to distribute the copies.""
On the other hand, Hlavacka estimated Bob's must pay as much as an extra five cents per page to print copywritten material-its priciest packet is a $90 political science packet with more than 1,000 pages.
Bob's allows returns until Sept. 16. ASM allows returns if the student can present proof of a schedule change from the Registrars office. Underground does not allow returns on course packets.
