I have noticed one thing about the whole college textbook situation in the past few weeks as I wait patiently (actually impatiently) for my refund check to be placed into my campus mailbox.

Teachers: listen up, and listen closely.

I have one simple question. Why must you all change textbooks from semester to semester? What changes so much in one semester that I lose anywhere from $20 to $200 on one textbook?

I have a stack of books on my bookshelf in my office that I thought (and I emphasize “thought”) would be a hot commodity at the end of the semester, but was I wrong.

I should have started renting my books way before my junior year.

Recently, after my summer classes were over, I made the trip on my lunch break to the bookstores around campus.

First, to the on-campus one where the nice clerk told me that she could not buy my books back because they had too many.

After my epic fail at the on-campus bookstore, I hopped in my car and drove (I know, I am lazy) the one block to the off-campus bookstore. The clerk there told me something in the same negative vein that the previous clerk told me.

The employee told me my books couldn’t be sold back, because the teachers for both classes had decided to change books for the next semester. I hate to say this, but this is not the first time that this explanation has been shared with me at the local book establishments in the area.

Why must teachers change textbooks so quickly without thinking first about their students?

I have to brag about one certainly jolly journalism professor who brags that he tries to find books cheaply and ones that don’t change editions like the weather.

Now, we can’t let book publishers get off too easy too.

Changing “editions” each year is mind-boggling to me.

What is the purpose (I’m exaggerating here) of adding one sentence to a chapter and renaming the whole book? Why must I pay an additional amount for the already-pricy book that you changed the cover art to?

Can there be some sort of compromise here?

I have heard rumors that teachers get kickbacks from book publishers for changing editions and even changing the entire book each year. Hopefully, this is not true.

How many times do instructors have to hear about the rising price of tuition, before they help us out? Tuition went up nearly 9 percent this year.

That’s considerably more that students are having to fork out to get a degree in our already-failing economy.

My solution is simple.

Professors need to adopt a book for at least 2 years, and stick with it. Changing books not only makes them have to find where they saved their syllabus on their computers, but it makes them have to actually read the book as well.

Honestly, the book companies and professors actually need to remember who their customers are. Students, the ones already shell out astronomical tuition dollars, are the customers.