Calculators are often the largest investments that high schoolers, college students, and parents must pay for. The graphing calculators range from about one hundred to two hundred dollars. These calculators are essential for many classes. Texas Instruments’ calculators are often the sole models that teachers, schools, and standardized testing allow. These standards give Texas Instruments a monopoly on this industry. Allowing one company to dominate, gives them a chance to maximize their profit and lower the quality of their products.

The TI-84 Plus originally sold for $150 and has only dropped to around $100. This calculator has been out for 10 years now and is still selling as many schools’ required calculator. In this age, with technology advanced so far, there are phones selling for $50 that can do all of the calculations it can do and much more. Texas Instruments has made few model changes and are still selling their products for more than double the price of today’s modern technology.

Allowing other companies to create calculators for school will give Texas Instruments competitors, thus making them either increase quality or lower price. I am not saying that there is not a need for a standard calculator for schools. However, making it one company’s job to build all of them causes prices to be unnecessarily high for such outdated products. Perhaps, there could be a system where school districts decide if a model of a calculator meets a class’ standards. That way other companies could create calculators for students and the price for them will lower to a reasonable price.

Schools have chosen Texas Instruments as the only source of calculators for students. This gave Texas Instruments the power to make extremely high prices for far surpassed technology. Only if schools accept a system to integrate other companies’ calculators, can high schoolers, college students, and parents pay appropriate prices for these types of calculators.