It's shameful that the first place I heard about this was r/UCDavis on Reddit, rather than on my UC Davis email. Many students won't know what's coming, because UC Davis Stores marked the announcement as an advertisement/promotion rather than an important event that will affect the lives of every UC Davis student.

Issue 1: Most UC Davis students who will be affected by this won't know they're going to be affected by it until it's too late to do anything about it--it's basically a money trap, targeting college students who are already hurting for money.

Issue 2: The UC Davis bookstore will be charging a bulk fee of $199 at the beginning of the quarter for every material you might or might not even need. That means, students will probably be charged for materials they won't even use.

Issue 3: They will be preferring to charge for E-books which expire at the end of the quarter, only providing physical copies when E-books are not available. This means that you can't buy a used book, resell your book, or even just have a physical copy that will last you the entire class series. This also means that you will have to pay $199 every quarter just to get the same E-book again. That's almost $600 extra per year.

Issue 4: Certain UC Davis-specific books such as lab manuals and UC Davis-specific textbooks (for the BIS2 series, or the CHE2 series, for example) will only be available via this program. Which means, students who need one of these items will have to purchase them alongside several other unnecessary things for an outrageous price.

Issue 5: The last day to opt out is September 10th. Why is this a problem? Because the first day of fall quarter instruction is September 30th--almost 3 weeks later. A vast majority of students don't even know whether or not they'll even need or use the book until at least the first day of instruction. Even most instructors don't have a syllabus until just a week before classes start.

Issue 6: The name is heavily misleading. They charge all students the same outrageous price, regardless of financial background. That's equality, not equity--and it's anything but helpful for the poor students who lost their jobs this year due to the pandemic.

Issue 7: The bookstore has been practicing these predatory acts for years. Overcharging students, charging them surprise fees to their student account (which have to be paid or they'll be dropped from their classes, mind you) and now, forcing repeat payments and limiting access to materials behind a ridiculous paywall.

We need to stop this before it gets out of hand.

We have to convince Jason Lorgan, Executive Director of Campus Recreation, Memorial Union and UC Davis Stores at University of California, Davis, to repeal this atrocious act, and possibly sell the bookstore back to the students, who can run it more fairly. If nothing is done about this, we will be taking this to the news and social media.

My original Reddit post on the subject.​

An anonymous faculty member's Reddit post on the subject.​

UC Davis store's post on their company website.