Katie Dilworth, an 18-year-old Moorpark College student, had to pay a high price to buy her books in the bookstore this semester. She is working two jobs to try to save up enough money to move out and start living on her own. She used her hard earned money to pay for the books that she needed for her classes.

“Books are just super expensive and I’m working two jobs for money to pay for them,” said Dilworth.

Dilworth is one of many students who bought their books at the bookstore, despite the higher prices. Moorpark College’s Vice President Iris Ingram and the bookstore staff, however, do not purposely make their merchandise more expensive.

“We spend a lot of time trying to keep down the price of books,” said Ingram.

A lot of students are turning to online sources to get their books rather than buying them in the bookstore, which reduces the Bookstore’s customer purchases.      

“As more and more students are moving to ordering their books online, that lessens the need for a brick and mortar building,” said Ingram.

College officials are aware that books at the bookstore are more expensive than books online. Contrary to popular belief, the bookstore does not randomly give prices to their books, but instead they have a percent markup, which they tack onto the original price that is given by the publisher. The current markup is 26 percent for new books, which is the industry average, and 33 percent for used books.

According to the District of Ventura County, the bookstore cannot use state money to fund itself. It survives through customer sales, just like any other store. The money made from the book markup goes towards keeping the bookstore afloat by paying for the actual building, the electricity, the employees, etc. If the bookstore is not able to generate enough revenue because of online competition, then it could be forced to close down.

For some students like Theresa Santos, not having a bookstore on campus would be an inconvenience. She doesn’t trust online sites and she has student reimbursement, allowing her to get money back if she buys her books at the bookstore.

Many other students would also be at a loss if the bookstore was closed. Lauren Hamilton and Tate Capline bought their books on campus because it was the quickest and most convenient way to get what they needed.

On the contrary, Briana Fennel said that having an on campus bookstore does not help at all. Like many, she compared prices and found that the bookstore was the most expensive choice.

Katie Dilworth decided to use the money from her two jobs to buy her books at the bookstore because she had to buy book packages, which are not available for purchase online.

“A few of my books came in packages specific for the class that the Internet did not offer,” said Dilworth.

The Moorpark College Bookstore