independent contractors - report working 72 or more hours per week in the field, making 30 or more presentations each day, in addition to time spent on bookkeeping, talking to managers or at sales meetings held each Sunday. According to the company, in 2010 the average first-year dealer who stayed with the program for over 20 days grossed $2,415 per month before expenses, which usually range from $1,500 to $3,000. At the end of the summer, products are shipped to the dealers, who revisit the homes where they made a sale to deliver the product and collect any balance due. Dealers generally pay their living expenses out of the down payments they collect, remitting the rest to the company to cover wholesale costs. Dealers return to headquarters in Nashville, where they settle accounts and receive a check for the season's earnings. Some dealers are invited to return in subsequent years as managers, who recruit their own teams during the school year and earn a percentage commission on the sales of their team. Products Southwestern Advantage publishes and markets educational books, software, and subscription websites. The main product, Southwestern Advantage, is a series of educational reference books targeted to school-age children. The product line also includes apps, college prep material, and others. Controversies Lobbying In 2007, Southwestern Advantage lobbied against the Malinda's Traveling Sales Crew Protection Act, an anti-traveling sales crew bill intended to stop companies from putting their workers in dangerous and unfair conditions. The bill was passed, but in a form that applies only to sales workers who travel in groups of two or more. Bans from campuses Harvard University banned Southwestern from recruiting on its campus in 1977 for "irregular recruiting activities", though four years later Southwestern resumed recruiting despite this ban. In 2005, the University of Maryland banned Southwestern from recruiting on its campus; as of 2009, however, the University continued to receive complaints against the company. In the UK University of Durham's campus in 2005, the Durham Students' Union, stating that the "Southwestern Company 'experience' is not marketed as openly as it could be, and some students may be misled", banned Southwestern from Dunelm House and mandated the union president "to liaise with Southwestern Books to work towards marketing which is clearer and to ask the company to develop its recruitment process to ensure Durham students are aware of the risks and pressures that the job