08-22-2005, 03:42 PM | #1 (permalink) |
Go Cardinals
Location: St. Louis/Cincinnati
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Textbook Rant
I just fucking paid $853 for my textbooks!!!
My organic chemistry textbook alone with $250. How on earth is someone not doing something to try and lower that price just a little bit??? 253 dollars for one textbook is a little ridiculous
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Brian Griffin: Ah, if my memory serves me, this is the physics department. Chris Griffin: That would explain all the gravity. |
08-22-2005, 04:05 PM | #3 (permalink) |
Fancy
Location: Chicago
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Wow, textbooks have gotten expensive since I finished undergrad. That is a very high price. I wonder who gets the money, because it definitely doesn't go to the editors.
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Whatever did happen to your soul? I heard you sold it Choose Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company |
08-22-2005, 04:11 PM | #4 (permalink) |
Junkie
Moderator Emeritus
Location: Chicago
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Certain things stay with me...Cost Accounting, junior year, requirement for my finance minor, in 1984ish -- before the days of amazon and other online bookresellers... the professor of the class WROTE the text book, and it got updated every year, if you got the class first semester, you paid full price for the book... I think it was somewhere around 185 dollars... books per semester used to run about 400- 500 dollars..
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Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less.
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08-22-2005, 04:20 PM | #5 (permalink) | |
Beware the Mad Irish
Location: Wish I was on the N17...
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I have one of those experiences too. Lawrence Mazlak at the University of Cincinnati -- Database Administration Theory in his world. Uuuugh. Useless text book that cost about a Benji. Unreal...and even crazier that the cost of books is now approaching 10 dimes.
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08-22-2005, 05:57 PM | #6 (permalink) |
Cunning Runt
Location: Taking a mulligan
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There have been quite a few articles in the papers recently. Useless revisions were discussed.
I'm surprised students don't do what we did in college-- buy one copy, and divide the labor of photocopying it for several other people. Dishonest? Yes. But so are the publishing houses who revise HISTORY books every year.
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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher |
08-22-2005, 06:02 PM | #7 (permalink) |
Junkie
Moderator Emeritus
Location: Chicago
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We did that photocopying in those classes that we had to take but pretty muchserved no useful purpose to us (music appreciation, art appreciation, women's studies, poetry... ) Books that pertained to my major or were requirements for my major i bought and kept then tossed out pretty much the day my student loans were paid off.
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Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less.
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08-22-2005, 06:07 PM | #8 (permalink) |
Junkie
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Damn, and here I thought the $300+ I'm paying this semester was bad. Some of the books are a complete scam though. They put out new editions that really don't offer anything different, other than new examples and a few end of chapter questions being changed. Have to buy the book new, not used just so you can do the homework. Total scam.
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"Fuck these chains No goddamn slave I will be different" ~ Machine Head |
08-22-2005, 06:25 PM | #9 (permalink) |
“Wrong is right.”
Location: toronto
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Yeah, working in a bookstore I see the scam that is the course publishing industry. It makes me sick and even though my boss would get angry, I always try to slip in a "you could probably find it at the library" in my sales pitch. Looking back on my university years, I would have made more effort to get books out at the library. I think that would have worked especially considering the amount of time I spent studying. If they are not to be taken out, then so be it. I'd have just studied there.
I realize that this might not work for some, but I don't think a lot of people consider it. Seems when the text is listed as "required," too many people take it to mean that they have to buy the book. I'm not a fan of photocopying, but not for legal reasons. More for the reason that at the end of the day I neither want to keep a photocopied version of a book, nor do I want to waste all the paper by throwing it out, nor can I sell it off.
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08-22-2005, 06:33 PM | #10 (permalink) |
Junkie
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The thing that pissed me off when I was in college was the new versions they would come out with. When I was in community college I bought a first edition textbook for one of my classes. When I went to sell it back at the end of the semester they wouldn't take it since a second edition was coming out. A couple of years later I went to a university and they required me to buy the fourth edition of the same book I had bought four years earlier. I forgot about the first edition I had sitting at home until Thanksgiving break. When I got home for Thanksgiving I thought I would compare the books and see what they had updated. All they had done was change the fucking pictures! Every single word of text was exactly the same! Even the captions on the pictures were the same, and the pictures were of the same things on the same pages, the pictures were just different! The review questions at the end of the chapters were the same too! It was an automotive textbook, so the first edition might have a guy working on a Ford, the fourth edition the guy was working on a Toyota. Ridiculous.
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08-22-2005, 06:48 PM | #11 (permalink) |
hoarding all the big girl panties since 2005
Location: North side
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It took a few years for me to get privvy to the "just because they say you have to have it doesn't mean you have to have it." I would go to class a few times and see how badly you needed the book. For instance, last semester I took a psych 100 class and didn't buy the book, and I passed the class with an A. It really depends on the teacher- what they want, do you have class discussions on the actual reading or does it just "suppliment" the course. The only book I bought and really used was my spanish book.
Textbooks suck.
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08-22-2005, 07:00 PM | #12 (permalink) | |
Mjollnir Incarnate
Location: Lost in thought
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I'll say this, though: my chemistry AP test more than paid for itself. The textbook I would have had to buy costs twice what the test did. |
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08-22-2005, 07:45 PM | #14 (permalink) | |
Sky Piercer
Location: Ireland
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Quote:
Just kidding, I presume that wouldn't be practical for you. But for the record, my expenditure on college books last year totalled $0.
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08-22-2005, 09:17 PM | #15 (permalink) |
Junkie
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I haven't got my books for this semester yet (class starts next week) but I always plan for around $120-$150 per class. I rely upon books, simply because I'm not a fan of attending class so I need to get my info somewhere.
As for new editions, its really a pain but many professors will let you know if an older edition will do. Also, I remember reading in USA Today awhile back that one of the reasons for the cut-and-paste new editions is because most companies don't make any money on the initial edition, and rely upon later editions runs for profit. |
08-22-2005, 09:42 PM | #16 (permalink) |
Psycho
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I depend on addall.com for my books. I just type in the ISBN number and it searches hundreds of online bookstores for the cheapest price and the it lists them all out for you. You can then click to buy it and it directs you to the site you need to go to. It has saved me a lot of money.
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-Speak your mind even if your voice shakes |
08-22-2005, 11:35 PM | #17 (permalink) |
32 flavors and then some
Location: Out on a wire.
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Sissy's books this semester came in at around $700 through the bookstore, a little over $400 at the off-campus used textbook store.
The textbook for my children's lit class is $110 through the campus bookstore, but can be found in a used edition for $3-$20 on Amazon marketplace. My adolescent lit book is $90 new, or about $50 at the used bookstore. There are usually about another $50 in paperbacks if you buy them new, and those change with each course depending upon how I've revised my curriculum. I couldn't care less what edition the students get most of the time, or whether they get it from the campus bookstore. Gilda
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08-23-2005, 03:56 AM | #18 (permalink) |
Upright
Location: UK
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Those prices are incredible. I didn't buy a single textbook through my entire first year. I got my name on the library waiting list for all the essential books, one at a time, and then when I got them I photocopied the essential bits which we were told to read. The rest of the time, I borrowed and read some of the other hundreds of books on the same subject and used those for essays and lab reports and background reading.
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08-23-2005, 04:06 AM | #19 (permalink) |
Insane
Location: You don't want to live here
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I never went to the campus textbook store unless the book was unavailable anywhere else. I went to half.com, amazon.com...there is even an online textbook comparison shopper that works REALLY well.
In the meantime - just consider the books an investment in your brain. You pay money for clothes to make your body look good, consider this expenditure as making your brain look good.
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Maybe it was over when she chucked me out the Rover at full speed. Maybe Maybe... ~a-Ha |
08-23-2005, 07:24 AM | #21 (permalink) |
I read your emails.
Location: earth
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I think i posted this before, I did a search but could not find my old post, but if you want to recoup some of your money here is what i did in university. All year I just collected textbooks from the lost and found in the caf, library, student union, residences...etc Anywhere students will leave books behind I would go and visit the lost and found. Now I know that books were not lost by me but hey, you gotta feed yourself sometimes. I would go and rumage though the books and pick out newest books. At the end of the year the bookstores usually have a book-buy-back day where they'll rebuy back your old text books for a discounted price. All those books you collected are now hard cash baby.
And if your lucky you might find some books you need for yourself in the lost and found for next semester. sorry to anyone who finds this morally disgusting, if you value your books you probably would not have lost them to begin with. I know that my books were so $$$ that i handled them like they were made of gold. and some were! |
08-23-2005, 07:34 AM | #22 (permalink) |
Kick Ass Kunoichi
Location: Oregon
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I'm really really lucky...the bookstore here on our campus is run by a student board, so they keep prices as low as feasibly possible, and try and keep as many used copies on hand as possible. Before the term starts, I print off the list of books needed from their website with all of their prices and double-check them against Amazon, Ebay, and half.com. I also look in the classifieds in the school paper and in the classifieds for our university forum to see if anyone's selling a used copy for cheap.
One thing I would like to do as a future business is start a textbook dealership online. I'd like to buy used textbooks from students for a fair and decent price and resell them for slightly more. I sell my used/"new" textbooks online through Ebay--I've made at least $200 selling books that have become worthless to me. I also make more through Ebay than I would selling them back to the bookstore. Notably, a lot of profs realize how much the books are costing you and will sometimes put a textbook on reserve in the library so you don't have to pay the $100+ for the book. Usually I wait until the first day of class to go buy my books to make sure I NEED the textbook.
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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
08-23-2005, 08:37 AM | #23 (permalink) |
I got blisters on me fingers!!!
Location: In my stressless expectation free zone.
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after talking with some profs over the past few years this is what i have figured out:
1) they dont like it any more than they do 2) if you are in an upperlevel sci class its going to cost more b/c the books are often printed in color 3) profs who have there own book dont set the selling price, dont control the reprinting of differnt edtions. Had on prof who wrote a populer math - logic book. She found out the week before the start of class that they publisher had put out a new edition. The change, the cover and a new answer key. 4) book stores often cant control prices. They are set by the publisher. Bookstores arent buy texts at a low price and selling they high. They are buying them high and making a small margin
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If you are not outraged than you are not paying attention! "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert |
08-23-2005, 09:06 AM | #24 (permalink) |
Knight of the Old Republic
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
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The prices are that high because most college kids are spoiled brats whose parents will send them endless supplies of money with which to do what they want. The people whose parents are <I>not</I> paying for their college are the people who are getting scammed. Most universities fail to include reasonable prices for those who get federal loans and then STILL don't have enough money to pay for tuition alone (me). The whole FAFSA system is fucked up anyway. Even if your parents aren't paying for your college, they still base how much grants/loans you get on your parents' income. So I get no grants, not enough loans, and still have extra costs like books and parking permits even though I'm not getting a free ride from my parents.
-Lasereth
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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert |
08-23-2005, 09:43 AM | #25 (permalink) |
Comedian
Location: Use the search button
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Shit guys... I hate to sound like the "One-Up-Guy", but my textbooks were waaaaaay more expensive than that.
Having said that, I have all of my textbooks from university in my office at home. I paid for them, I read them, and I still refer to them when I have a problem... It makes me feel good and smart and important to see a whole wall of textbooks that I have read and understood. I think they are worth it. I had a "History of Economics" class that cost me well over 600 bucks FOR THAT CLASS ALONE. But the reading list was the greatest books from the greatest minds ever. If I wanted to, I could have got that from the library, but now I have Marx, Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, and even that Russel Crowe guy (hahaha) on my shelf. I take issue with people who throw their notes / textbooks away at the end of the semester (or for textbooks, selling them at a price where you might as well throw them away). I paid for my learning experience, I earned the grade, I want to keep that knowledge forever! Hey, expensive textbooks beat the alternative: A lifetime of ignorance.
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3.141592654 Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis. |
08-23-2005, 09:46 AM | #26 (permalink) |
will always be an Alyson Hanniganite
Location: In the dust of the archives
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We didn't have textbooks back in my day, as the papyrus was just too expensive, and the scrolls far too cumbersome for a full classload. We usually would just follow along as our instructor would write in the sand by his feet.
Ok...all foolishness aside, my daughter's textbooks are calculated into the cost of her tuition. I gotta say...I'm likin' that setup...a lot! Saves on those pesky assed "surprise" expenses. I think, and this has been a "few" years ago, the most expensive textbook that I had to buy was Business Law, and that ran, I believe, around $90.00.
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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt. |
08-23-2005, 12:05 PM | #27 (permalink) | |
Cunning Runt
Location: Taking a mulligan
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Quote:
Thanks.
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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher |
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08-23-2005, 01:54 PM | #30 (permalink) |
Omnipotent Ruler Of The Tiny Universe In My Mind
Location: Oreegawn
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"Hear, now!" Thus spake mystmarimatt unto the masses. "Such is the glorious nature of English Major-dom, for books doth cost but $5 dollars on the almighty AMAZON.COM, your great lord and righteous GOD! No longer shall you be beholden to the wicked, evil prices of the sanctimonious bookstore! No, ye shall be saved, ye shall be redeemed by the love and acceptance of the almighty AMAZON.COM!"
Seriously though, as an english major, I luck out in that I really can get most of my books cheap, and really, I usually don't sell them back anyway, I just add them to my collection. Back when I was doubling in History and English though, that was killer. I held the bookstore's record for most spent on books last spring term.
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Words of Wisdom: If you could really get to know someone and know that they weren't lying to you, then you would know the world was real. Because you could agree on things, you could compare notes. That must be why people get married or make Art. So they'll be able to really know something and not go insane. |
08-23-2005, 02:00 PM | #31 (permalink) |
Tilted
Location: Calgary, AB
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My bookstore decided to stop increasing the prices, and just started taking your soul.
Seriously though, most schools will have an underground market, that cuts the bookstore right out of the picture. Check bulletin boards for people selling books, and perhaps they can recoupe more of their loses, and keep the bookstore from a double digit margin. There is always the problem with moving between editions of the book. The information rarely changes between the editions, just some typos and a couple of sentences. The problems included in the book change almost every time (I think that may be why they change the editions), and to fix that I would just copy the questions out of a friends text, or I would check it out of the library to get the problem set.
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As soon as you stop living, you start dying.... |
08-23-2005, 03:00 PM | #32 (permalink) |
Upright
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Worst class I ever had that way was back in my grad school days -- one class, 4 books, over $200, and in the end NONE of them were even any good! The whole reason they were on the list was because they were new books that the prof thought might be interesting, but no reviews were available for them yet. Essentially she got a free copy of each book, we got shafted on price, and ultimately not even the used book stores wanted 'em because no one was going to use them again.
And those prices were from about a dozen years ago...
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"Jack! You've debauched my sloth!" |
08-23-2005, 05:29 PM | #34 (permalink) |
I am Winter Born
Location: Alexandria, VA
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I've never been a fan of the whole eBooks thing - I can't seem to keep concentrated on actually reading if I don't have the physical book in front of me. Now, I hate paying several hundred dollars a semester in books - and I tend to keep the books (or at least those computer science and math books that are useful) but I'd much rather the physical books than electronic copies.
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Eat antimatter, Posleen-boy! |
08-23-2005, 07:30 PM | #35 (permalink) | |
32 flavors and then some
Location: Out on a wire.
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Quote:
Another English/History double major. I remember those days of get up, read till classes start, read at lunch, read till supper, study notes until bedtime, repeat the next day. Once I added my teaching credential classes, it really became fun. And my brother thinks Biochemistry is going to be a hard major. . Gilda
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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that. ~Steven Colbert |
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08-23-2005, 08:26 PM | #37 (permalink) | |
Insane
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
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Quote:
Uh-oh. Perhaps I ought to rethink my English/History double major.
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08-23-2005, 09:40 PM | #39 (permalink) | |
Betitled
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08-24-2005, 07:25 AM | #40 (permalink) | |
Kick Ass Kunoichi
Location: Oregon
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English actually can lead to a lot of careers that pay a good wage: publishing, law, technical writing, copyediting, journalism. Never underestimate the value of being able to write and speak well. They are very valuable skills in today's job market.
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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
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rant, textbook |
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