Why Your Textbooks Are So Expensive

Parents tend to examine the cost of tuition when their teenaged darling is hunting for the perfect university.

It is assumed that the incidentals, such as textbooks, are going to be expensive wherever the child lands. At the end of the semester, however, the books can be sold back, easing the sting a bit. Companies like Follett buy used textbooks and then sell them to university bookstores, and so the circle goes around.

In turn, Follett pays the buy-back source a commission, so that the flow of used textbooks continues. There is an incentive, therefore, for a university bookstore to offer the buy-back program.

The university is supposed to get their cut from Follett, which would help to fund the bookstore so that the students would not have to cover the entire cost through their miscellaneous fees.

At Missouri State University, the bookstore didn't see those profits and the unfortunate parents paying the bills did not see the benefit of the used book buy-back program.

How much profit went missing, that had to be passed along to already strapped students and their families?

Initially, the bookstore at the university could not find $400,000 that was supposed to be in its accounts. Mark Brixey, who managed the bookstore, was sacked last August on the heels of an internal audit that raised some questions he could not answer.

As it turns out, he was far more adept at lifting profits than previously thought. He will soon plead guilty to fraud in excess of $1 million over a ten year period.

That's an enormous sum.

How many scholarships could have been awarded with that money? How many students had to drop out because they couldn't afford the fees any longer, while Mark Brixey enjoyed himself?

Mr. Brixey ran the buy-back program and pocketed the money paid out by Follett because he could. There was no one looking over his shoulder, and it was easy enough to convince Follett to give him cash for the used books, which he then kept.

The university has learned a lesson, as has any company that discovers an employee has been embezzling funds.

The moral of this and every other story of employee theft is: Trust everyone, but cut the cards.

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