Classes have started once again, and once again for a week we complain about how much we paid for books and how we think we're getting ripped off.

And even though we've learned to live with the fact that book prices are outrageous, and that the "guess how much I paid" question makes for nice chitchat, it is still upsetting that we're getting the pennies squeezed out of us.

The 40,000 students that attend this campus are forced to print the list of books they need at one of the very few computers conveniently located down at the campus bookstore. Because the vast majority of us get this list right around the start of the semester, we are pretty much coerced into purchasing our books at the campus bookstore -- where the ripping off takes place.

My question is, how can we use the Internet to access things like housing contracts, meal plans, 500,000 songs and academic information, but we can't get a list of the few expensive books we need and maybe get them for less somewhere else? The answer is pretty obvious -- money. The same reason why departments change books every other semester.

But still, why is it that Penn State can spend our money on things like Napster and not afford to loosen its tight control on our book money?