Memories and nostalgia –good or bad— are integral to our high school experience. Frequently, we can find all the memories and recollections condensed into one book–the yearbook. Almost every school has a yearbook committee that publishes yearly to commemorate significant events. This also justifies many students’ favorite part of the school year: yearbook signing. Whether it is planning a way to talk to their hallway crush or just to end the year on a good note, there is not anyone who doesn’t like yearbook signing.
At Claremont High School, yearbooks can be bought at 100 dollars per yearbook, 130 dollars with ASB and yearbook combo, or 120 dollars to buy later in the year. This is not easy to accommodate and remains expensive for a mass majority. These costs also cause many students to refrain from purchasing a yearbook because of the high prices, putting low-income students at a structural disadvantage.
The Yearbook staff says they partner with the district and also have donations called Angel Books available to help accommodate costs. This is a good step in the right direction, but more is needed to solve the fundamental issue of too-expensive yearbooks. Only some people are aware that you might be able to get a free yearbook in the first place, but there is also an issue that not everyone who needs one can be accommodated. Unfortunately, there is a limited supply of Angel books and the price of yearbooks still remains a barrier for the majority of students. I also encourage more students to contact their counselor to see if they can be accommodated.
The issue remains that yearbooks are still costly for the general population and need to be decreased in cost across the board. Just because students do not qualify or can receive a free book also does not mean that everyone will now have the ability to buy it and justify the high price.
Despite that being said, there are still many reasons why prices are raised at this hefty level. The primary cause is the high yearbook production value and printing pages. Printing yearbooks requires manufacturing costs and varying extensive payments for ink, print materials, edge binders, etc. All these fees can add up in order to make the yearbook.
However, the yearbook committee does not publicly disclose how much money they spend on yearbooks and the profit they gain from the sale of yearbooks.
We asked for a follow-up on where the costs and fees go, and the head editors summarized it into a few different areas. The first cost is for long-term investment. They claim the costs go towards buying new materials such as cameras and updating equipment. The second source of the profit goes to pay for a camp where all yearbook editors and photography students can spend time improving their craft. They get to work with professionals to improve the quality of their work, which translates to better quality in the yearbooks.
An additional aspect of the yearbook profits is the revenue made by ads in the yearbook. Every student is required to pitch ten ads, and the profits from these ads are funded towards their Disneyland trip.
The purpose of yearbooks is to commemorate the beautiful times, but is it truly worth it when people are deterred from buying them because they are so expensive? One of the most important concepts the Claremont High School yearbook pursues is equal representation. However, that equal representation can only start if we make increased strides to account for those costs.