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408 Comments
- Beson669, on 01/22/2008, -1/+245I always liked how various editions of, say, an Ancient Rome textbook came out every year. Really? That much has changed in ANCIENT ***** ROME in 2007 that required a new edition?? One would think, you know, being ANCIENT ***** ROME, ***** would stay pretty much the same
- P1d40n3, on 01/22/2008, -3/+227Anything that makes these ***** textbooks cheaper is A by me.
- gbarberi, on 01/22/2008, -1/+162They need to get rid of the "edition system" as well. Too often the differences between editions are minuscule. Professors can't assign previous editions because they're no longer in print. Book stores have to purchase and stock the new editions.
- rootnik, on 01/22/2008, -0/+129Math books always pissed me off. Every year, a new edition of a Math book released. Because the changes to math in the past year are vital to the success of my future career.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -1/+98i saved over 300 dollars by downloading a torrent of one of my textbooks and then buying the rest of my required texts off ebay.
i refuse to buy from college bookstores, much like i refuse to take a dick in the ass - THEROC, on 01/22/2008, -2/+73Inflation is not at 1.5%, government figures are pure fantasy.
- dannyapplesauce, on 01/22/2008, -2/+64I've gone to great lengths to avoid buying textbooks that are blantantly overpriced. I borrwo books from the library, share books with my roomate, buy the "not for sale" softcover books on the internet, and even bum books from friends who took the class.
It'd be nice if my school library had copies of the books required for classes, but then how would the school store make money. I mean I'm paying $40,000+ a year in tuition as it is =/ - inactive, on 01/22/2008, -1/+55Well, there used to be ways to avoid buying new books, but now they have a new trick, ***** ONLINE COMPANIONS!
Half of my courses have online quizzes, exercises that contribute to score between 10 to 20 percent, the code that comes with the book expires after 4 months from first use, and usually buying the used book and the access code separately would cost as much as buying the new book or even more. - mesmeriffic, on 01/22/2008, -0/+46Textbook Torrents makes it pretty cheap.
http://textbooktorrents.com/index.php - Slungsolow, on 01/22/2008, -3/+44I'm a huge fan of the "1 ebook reader per child" movement... In all honesty, there needs to be a day where 'textbook' is not a tangible object but a piece of software.
- Zipko, on 01/22/2008, -0/+40Those companion CDs are such a scam. Activation codes tied to student ID numbers so you can't resell them.
I took an intro Logic course offered by our Philosophy department. Being a math major I was well aware of how discrete logic works and didn't want to pay $150 for the book and software. Half way through the semester the prof called me aside and advised me to drop the course because he said I hadn't done a single homework assignment which counts for 25% of our final grade. He wouldn't let me do the homework on paper because he didn't want to grade it. Said I had to use the software.
I aced every test and passed the class with a C. Should have been an easy A, but because I couldn't borrow someone's activation to do the homework I had to either shell out beer money or take a bad grade. - elscorcho717, on 01/22/2008, -3/+41I go to Berklee in Boston... they've written all of their own textbooks for nearly every course (some liberal arts courses are the exception) and they have them on sale on the campus bookstore for $8-12. Why don't more schools do this?
- lewhich, on 01/22/2008, -0/+35You know the worst part ... That means you can't sell that stupid-super heavy calculus textbook you have ... you can't throw it away (because you paid $106.00 for it) and you can't sell it either ... so It just sits there and occupies space (for 3-4years) until you can't stand it no more.
- rnwen2750, on 01/22/2008, -2/+36Uh, no. You don't know a lot about university politics. Most professors would be glad to use older editions, but the university bookstores require them to order the newest editions as older editions are no longer produced.
- pintomp3, on 01/22/2008, -1/+29it's not 186% either.
- nomadofthehills, on 01/22/2008, -0/+25Buy used online at amazon. I save over 200 dollars a semester this way. Email your professors before the semester starts, and find what you need before the rush. Its not rocket science, and NO ONE should buy a book at the school book store, its highway robbery.
- profJohn, on 01/22/2008, -1/+26Speaking as a professor, no, we don't get kickbacks. Constant new editions of texts, when they don't have substantive improvements, are a pain for us as well.
- zeitgueist, on 01/22/2008, -0/+24That may be the case, but I doubt the prices are due to inflation.
- way2muchsense, on 01/22/2008, -0/+23State university bookstores are just as bad. $200 for a freshman calculus course. Not nuclear physics. Not brain surgery. Freshman goddamn calculus. A course for 18 year old snotty-nosed punks, half of whom will probably not make it to sophomore year. Made me so mad I wrote the governor a nastygram.
- 0rion16, on 01/22/2008, -1/+24Rather than pay 500$ a semester, I don't buy the books anymore. I have to either eat, or get the books. I took a hit in the gpa, about .5, but its totally worth it.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -2/+23they should come out with editions every 5 or more years, this whole business is full of *****
- dtd00d, on 01/22/2008, -0/+21This past semester I've put down more than $400 for textbooks. This semester I have upwards of another $300.
I would kill for a PDF if it meant it was cheaper. - lcohiomatty86, on 01/22/2008, -0/+21no not really, its pretty awesome that your tuition is as cheap as your textbooks...
- bennyboy371, on 01/22/2008, -0/+19No kidding, just this morning I found out how much my very small, thin philosophy books were. $80 for the both of them. It should just be unlawful to price gouge like this.
- rnwen2750, on 01/22/2008, -0/+19Agreed, except in some biological fields where the information in one edition is often incredibly different than in the editions before them. This is due to the fast pace of the field and is almost unavoidable.
- billinjapan, on 01/22/2008, -0/+18Same here, I hate having to change my syllabus and course outline just to accommodate a new edition that has little or really no improvements over the previous edition. So "nooo" go back to school and learn before shooting your mouth off, or at the very least back up your theory. I wished I got kickbacks then I could retire a heck of a lot earlier.
- ahoy, on 01/22/2008, -0/+17you got off easy... I spent $400 today... what the *****, whats that like a dollar a page? I'm not counting the other 4 books I didn't buy.
- loungechair, on 01/22/2008, -0/+17No *****. The students would be so lost if they didn't have all of the latest developments in introductory calculus. All they do is shuffle the chapters around, make a chapter into an appendix and make one of the appendices into a chapter, and add a handful of new questions that the author probably couldn't even pick out. All the while, Dover is printing old text books from the 70's and 80's, with the same information, and selling them for like 10 bucks. I don't understand why a math prof wouldn't go for an old reprinted Dover book if there's on available for whatever topic he's teaching.
The worst math book I ever saw was an applied algebra book. 200 pages for 200 dollars. - tmyeager, on 01/22/2008, -0/+17I felt this increase. I just got home from buying a Psych book that cost $209.
- dbxz, on 01/22/2008, -5/+21compare that to the 10-30% more canadians STILL pay on books (even though our dollar is even)... ugh
- inactive, on 01/23/2008, -0/+14I wish the pirate bay or isohunt would release a "book search" system with basically an underground of scanned textbooks!
- loungechair, on 01/22/2008, -1/+15Maybe the ancient romans are trying to catch up with the times?
- billybob217, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13PDF + LIbrary/Kinkos = cheaper than textbook
Just take your PDF to the library, or some other copy centre, and print it off there... Your textbook then costs WAY less... - MtheoryX, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13Why the hell would they make a new edition of a Calc book? The math hasn't changed in quite some time. I'll tell ya why: They're greedy bastards, and it's not gonna change.
- AlexWills, on 01/22/2008, -1/+14When I read over my 8th edition MicroEconomics book, the author compared the PS3 to the Wii in terms of demand. Did miniscule details like these really warrant a new edition?
- sonicularulus, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13i spent $500 last semester and this semester im going to spend about $300. Sad thing is that when i resold my books, i got back only about $150.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -1/+14That's a fair price. Psych!
- KaptainKandy, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13Seeing as I just plunked down $170 for a calc text book this really hits home.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13Same with Geology. What the ***** happened in the past three years, that necessitates a new edition?
- LanceUppercut, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13Buy the international editions. They are usually paperback and have the same content. I saved my fiance's brother ~50% off of USED from Miami University's bookstore by buying a brand new international edition of the book. I found it through one of the many college textbook search engines. The bookstore wanted $110 used, I got it shipped here for $62. Hope this helps :)
- Rhino2, on 01/23/2008, -0/+12I love those multimedia CDs! It's a wonder how they can cram 6 pages of text into a 372 mb java applet with flash integration that basically gives you a "virtual book" - but with all the class of a broken camera driver in Windows 3.1 and all the speed and easy of use of a 9600 baud modem running telnet to an unsupported terminal protocol. That is worth the extra $90 right there! And it's not like you can't use it 10 years for now, it supports both Windows 95 AND MacOS 8.1!
- a10webb, on 01/22/2008, -0/+12Although buying books from the library here sends some money to the school I simply would buy them used on amazon for much less than what the bookstore charged. Plus you get more for selling it there than you would sell it to the bookstore. Come on, $27 for a book I paid $150 for?!?
- pintomp3, on 01/22/2008, -0/+12that works, until they change the required "edition" on you.
- MioTheGreat, on 01/22/2008, -0/+11There are also some electrical engineering courses where it's understandable.....but pretty much everything else has remained unchanged for the last century or so.
- boxybrzown, on 01/22/2008, -0/+11Not really. You're not actually squelching ideas by charging a lot for college textbooks, you're just milking college students. The goal is profit, not wide-scale suppression of knowledge.
- MioTheGreat, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10It gets worse when you get to the upper level classes and can't even find used books for some of these courses that aren't over $100
***** Solid State Physics.... - PATSCRU, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10While in some cases, an new edition is necessary, i find that new editions are the rule, not the exception, and that the publishers use them as an opportunity to drive sales, as a student is forced to buy new as opposed to used when a new edition is released. Additionally, the number of new editions in educational publishing far outweighs the frequency of new editions in non educational publishing.
- driftwood07, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10then they sell them to the next semesters student for the $500 amount again , making a huge profit
- Fatcheeseguy, on 01/22/2008, -0/+9And I thought it was just gas that was getting so damn expensive...
- briansearles, on 01/22/2008, -0/+9Maybe he goes to Harvard? Just maybe?
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