Textbook Prices

[JPD]

I just got my textbooks for this semester, and while I"m only taking two classes this semester, my textbook cost came to almost 300 dollars, and while that is for 6 books, some of which weren't to bad, two books were expensive.

I am aware that this is an expensive of being in college, and did budget for it, but I don't get why some of these books have to be so expensive.

When looking at the shelves on the bookstore, I also looked at the books the other sections of the same class required.

Each of my classes required 3 books. In one of those, a teaching teaching another section required zero books, and for the other class, a teacher for one of the other sections required two.

[s_stabeler]

two main reasons:
1) it's a somwhat limited market. There are how many uni students at any one time taking any particular subject? t's less so for the more popular subjects, but a textbook on something fairly obscure isn't going to sell very well- so prices are higher to account for that
2) profiteering. since students HAVE to buy X textbook, there is a monopoly situation.

[JPD]

One thing I have noticed as well, is many publishers will put out and new edition, but when comparing it to the old edition, there is very little, if any difference. I know I had a great teacher for one class, where if we had any of the most recent three editions, we would be fine, and I've had others that have adopted the newest published one, but due to the difference in end of chapter questions, the older editions would not work for that class.

[mikoyan29]

Gah. I hated buying textbooks in college. I was taking Physics and I think my books were goldplated or something. I got lucky on Calculus because I was able to use that book for three classes. My first physics book was usable for the first two physics classes. The rest not so much. I seem to remember paying $100 for a book 20 years ago. I'd hate to think of what that bad boy costs now.

[EricKei]

There are many tales out there of new "versions" of textbooks containing little to no new content, with the only real differences being a few updated pictures and having the chapters and/or the text within them rearranged....Well, that, and a price increase x.x

Yer preaching to the choir here, JPD ^_^ I was in college in the late 90's, and, even then, I seldom had a sub-$200 book bill (for a "light" semester!); a couple times, nearly $600

[gremcint]

www.adebooks.com international editions for significantly less money.

[fireheart17]

I can get a couple of textbooks having "newer" editions every so often...politics in particular. Things like foreign languages, history, sociology and psychology don't necessarily need new copies every frigging time.

My uni sort of handled some of the "out-of-date" crap by providing readers for the classes. These were anywhere from $3-$40 and contained a bunch of documents such as chapters, letters, speeches and so on from different authors. THey were then organised into reading week. Some tutors made you further analyse said reading in relation to a particular topic. I always seemed to score well on these.

[BlaqueKatt]

my ex husband's college included the books in tuition, originally you got to keep them, then they instituted a buying program, where tuition dropped a bit, you were still provided books, but you had to pay the "used" price if you felt they'd be useful later on and wanted them, or if you marked them.

[bainsidhe]

In some cases, the professor was one of the authors of the book, and each year students were required to by the newest version, even though there were only slight changes between versions. That was a double-whammy, because not only were you required to buy new, but you couldn't sell back the book at the end of the semester, since no one else would use that copy.

My first year in college was 1994-1995. I had a TI-81 graphing calculator from my senior year in high school that cost me $80. It took a lot of hours working fast food to buy that thing, and I was disappointed to learn my college class expected us to buy the "new" TI-85 calculator, which cost around $100. I muddled through the class and made do with what I had. There were some differences, but my calculator could still do everything that was necessary for the class.

[patiokitty]

When I was in university I would only buy a book for class if the professor absolutely maintained it was necessary. I had one English prof who demanded that we buy a set of three compendiums that covered pretty much every era in English Lit...even though she was only using maybe three or four items from each book. At $75 a book I certainly wasn't going to do that. I told her point blank that I would not spend that sort of money and if she wanted me to have the books so damn much she could pay for them because I was perfectly fine with going to the library or online to get the stories/poems/whatever she wanted. But I found that with many English professors, to be honest. They wanted you to have the latest and greatest (in their mind) editions. I only had one English prof who didn't give a damn as long as you had a copy of whatever of the story/book/whatever he was teaching.

I did have a folklore class where the prof's wife was the author of one of the books...I told him that I really couldn't afford the book so he actually gave me a copy.

I have a tendency to keep my books and I still have several that I picked up for my university English classes and even some of my History classes, but for courses like Psychology or Mathmatics I sold those books as soon as I was finished with them. Perhaps if I were to have gone into either of those disciplines I would have kept them, but I only took those courses as they were pre-requisites required for getting into the Bachelor of Education program...which I ended up just missing getting into. *shrugs shoulders*

I spent some time during university working in the university bookstore, and I was forever telling students to wait until after they were given their syllabus for each class to buy their textbooks. Why? Because much of the time the prof would admit in that first class that the students would do just fine without the books as long as they attended class, or that the only reason a particular book was listed online as being needed for the course was because 1) somebody screwed up when sending the book list to the bookstore, 2) the dean of the department thought that everybody needed the latest and greatest text even if the individual profs weren't using them, 3) they were recommended reading but not required, or 4) copies were available online in e-format or in the library.

I remember one semester where a history textbook ran about $200...I found a copy in the library and once I got my hands on the course syllabus with the reading list I just scanned all of the things I needed to read so I could pull up each file as I needed it. Saved a ton of money that way too. School was expensive enough without buying every book a prof wanted you to have.

At one point there was a really handy website where you could get free e-copies of many text books - I wish they were still around but they got closed down right around the time I finished my degree. It was a good way to save money, especially if you had an e-reader you could put the various books onto.

[Eisa]

I ended up renting a lot of my textbooks because screw that, I'm not paying $500 for my textbooks. Worked really well for the classes I didn't need the book after. Although I still ended up paying a lot because I did actually want to keep some of my psychology textbooks, since that was my major and all.

I got lucky however--a lot of my professors were pretty upfront about what books were actually required and what would be helpful, potentially, but not needed. Not that I read the required ones half the time anyway.

[EricKei]

Gremcint -- If only that place had been around when I was in college. Only issue was that many teachers would give reading/research assignments by page number -- especially in larger classes. If they didn't match up (something different editions tend to fiddle with), you were SOL without a buddy to look up the pages/topics for you constantly.

Our bookstore didn't have book rentals, either. It tended to drive people to a third-party book-reseller place, which was *almost* as bad as the university bookstore on sale and buyback pricing (and you thought GameStop had shitty buyback prices...)

[HYHYBT]

Waiting until after the first day of class has its advantages. I ran into opposing situations where it was great: one class, the book, or enough of it, turned out to be available online for free, and at least one other we only found out then that a used copy wouldn't work because of software licensing. Then there are the instructors who get ticked if you *don't* have everything the first day, which I can understand for courses that only meet once a week... It also pretty well cuts off buying online, and if a book you really do need after all is sold out in the local bookstores you're in trouble.

[Racket_Man]

DAMN

When I first went to college back in the late 1970's I thought $50 or $60 for a textbook was pricey. I bought as much USED books as I could find

When I went back 10 years later the prices had jumped to the $100 - $150 range

[KabeRinnaul]

DAMN

When I first went to college back in the late 1970's I thought $50 or $60 for a textbook was pricey. I bought as much USED books as I could find

When I went back 10 years later the prices had jumped to the $100 - $150 range

I recall paying about $350 for a single math textbook in 2004.

I think my total textbook cost that year hit about $800.