Email: howard.combs@sjsu.edu
BUS 139
Cost of 15-week subscription to print edition of the Wall Street Journal: $30.00
Cost of Wall Street Journal [electronic resource]: $0
The Wall Street Journal is available free of cost to students through the library’s databases.
The Wall Street Journal offers a low price alternative to expensive primary textbooks and/or readers in many disciplines. The newspaper is now published six days a week and it definitely is not just for business anymore.
I require my marketing classes to use the Wall Street Journal as support for the textbook. Students are assigned articles relating to class subjects such as advertising, retailing, branding, global business, global culture, global education, job training, eCommerce, and technology. The WSJ is particularly good at showing how topics covered in class and in the textbook relate directly to ongoing issues in society. It is also extremely good at covering global business and global political issues. The WSJ covers issues in Africa, Asia, and South America that are not found in other sources.
Every semester I discuss the WSJ assignments as a part of the class lectures. The students also know that they will get some questions from the WSJ assignments on the final exam.
The cost to students of a fifteen week WSJ subscription is only $30 (or $20 for a 10 week subscription). Some of these students already have a WSJ subscription from another class which makes the marginal cost of requiring it in my class zero. If multiple faculty in the same discipline require the WSJ (as is the case in the Marketing Department) then the cost per class to the student is extremely low because one subscription covers the needs in several sections.