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hollysmom
(5,946 posts)
Fridays Child
(23,998 posts)
Looking at attending a local community college, and all the "digital textbook" packages cost about $50 more than the already expensive books!
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)
Volaris
(10,272 posts)the last book the college told me to buy was $150.00, "latest edition (9th ed., I think), new information and whatnot. So I checked online, found out that the only upgrade was a new forward, and some stuff that I FOLLOWED A LINK TO THAT WAS POSTED ONLINE lol.
I ordered the 8th edition online from a used textbook site for 8 bucks. SHIPPING cost more than the purchase.
College does NOT have to equal a lifetime of financial debt and potential ruin. You just have to learn how to do it.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)all students should be provided free computers
both for the home and for their classrooms.
it should be manditory (and yes, our taxes should pay for all of it).
These book sellers are bilking the public, revising books every year just to make students buy new ones
It is a cottage industry, always wonder who is behind this, who is profiting.
It is not the teachers(there are NO kickbacks to them, so this is not a teacher forcing.)
Who makes the money in all 50 states for this?
GCP
(8,166 posts)I always assumed the teachers were profiteering, because they'd mandate each other's books. Professors from one college would use the books written by professors of the college down the road. Maybe the colleges profit?
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)every year the kids needed the brand new expensive model of one.
Why?
My old little trusty calculator that is 20 years old now gives me everything I need to know
Why do parents need to shell out that money?
I bet private schools make a fortune on it (much like Colleges use football as the end all to their money income, as Penn State showed).
I don't think its individual teachers, as normally all teachers are required these days in each school to get the same things so it is bigger than one teacher wanting to help his friend sell a certain book or that teacher getting a kickback.
It could happen, but why not let the kids just get it online.
Even used book stores are a sham, if they are directly connected to the school itself.
exboyfil
(17,863 posts)teaching Trig and more complicated functions as well as Calculus. I never really used them until I started tutoring my daughter in Advanved Algebra/Trig. Well worth the investment. You should not need to purchase a calculator after the TI-84 which should get you through the rest of your math. Ones that do symbolic logic (Algebra and Calculus) would be nice once you learn the subject, but they are not necessary.
Textbooks are a rip off, but I do think that well presented textbooks do aid in the learning process. My daughter's Calcullus based Physics textbook is light years ahead of my Halliday and Resnick from college. For analytical classes I still think you can't beat a textbook (I don't own a tablet) but PC based textbooks are difficult to manipulate through when you are doing problems.
Nice thing about PSEO is that the college picks up the tab for the textbooks (over $400 in textbooks this semester for my daughter). Many textbooks are now sold with homework management software (forcing you to get a license versus sharing a textbook). The minor change in editions is criminal though.
postulater
(5,075 posts)exboyfil
(17,863 posts)Many states will pay for your college classes while in High School. It is a great deal that more families should take advantage of (especially in school districts that don't offer AP courses). In Iowa you have to break through the High School offerings before they start paying for the courses. I did this by having my daughter bypass Precalculus and go to straight to Calculus I (which I paid for and she got an A). I also paid for classes that would count for both High School and college graduation (taking one semester for what would normally take two semesters for English for example).
postulater
(5,075 posts)Guess I shoulda known that.
Good idea for your daughter.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)for Calculus and Calculus 2 in college. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have gotten as much out of the classes without it, since I am more of a conceptual/visual learner. I'm one of those that loved word problems, and struggled with strict variables, functions and problems without context.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)Book deals in some schools are the shoe endorsements of academia. Professors gain extra income through publishing their own textbooks (as well as getting the ego stroke) and can enhance their careers as being "published authors". If that book is published through the University's press, yep, the money gets spread around.
I just finished a decade of helping pay for my kids college and saw the sticker shock on textbooks compared to when I was in their situation 30 years earlier. Not only did the books cost more but they got very little when they sold the books back...and it became more and more common that they had to buy new books (at higher prices) cause the older books were considered "obsolete".
One thing I learned was that a teacher who used their own textbook tended to be beyond reproach when asked or challenged. Thus if I noticed that the name on the textbook was the same as the teacher, I'd drop the class...
exboyfil
(17,863 posts)by my professors (Wark, Incropera, DeWitt, Fox, and McDonald). They were some of my best teachers, and especially Incropera and DeWitt was the accepted text by many big name universities for a generation.
hunter
(38,318 posts)The professor would be one of the academic big dogs in the subject, and his text would be used all over the nation.
Nevertheless, I do think the textbook industry as it now exists ought to be killed dead.
K-12 texts ought to be open-sourced and maintained by teachers in the same manner open source software is maintained. Colleges and universities don't need textbooks at all anymore because every student has a computer. Professors and lecturers ought be maintaining open source electronic texts as part of their teaching duties. Educators who are recognized by their peers for creating and maintaining high quality texts ought to be paid extra for their work and/or allowed fewer teaching duties to pursue their writing. Funding for this could be diverted from money we now waste on useless military ventures.
Electronic distribution of these texts worldwide should not be limited in any way, again on the model of Open Source software.
The more educated people we have in the world, the more likely we are to solve the environmental and social problems that will otherwise destroy our civilization.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Then I took Discrete Stochastic Models with the ancient guy who wrote the book on discrete stochastic models 50 years ago or so. He showed us the copy that Feynman signed when Feynman was auditing the exact same course, which was pretty cool.
teenagebambam
(1,592 posts)Professors in most academic disciplines MUST publish in order to achieve or maintain tenure. I can assure you the extra income is minimal.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Used her own book for her class. The book was awful from both an ethical point of view and from the writing style. She was just awful. I've never been so glad to finish a class in my life.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)has to buy one this week
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)for use at both home and school.
Supplemental or even primary lessons for the students could be accessed via internet.......also providing a computer to students to access e-textbooks would almost certainly be cheaper than buying the textbooks in the first place.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)my youngest is in college, just took a winter recess course, all online full credit, and did not have to go to class.
more and more should be online(though I wouldn't give up the social setting needed for a person), but it also would be a way to help adults whose job is rendered obsolete, or who has to work two jobs with an opportunity to get training in a different field.
the rigid structure in today's world needs to be made more flexible, and as proven, different kids need different things.
(personally I like to believe there is one teacher that breaks through any one kid, even if the others don't(or can't be bothered, or have too many kids, one good teacher will focus on those kids that need that something breakthrough which enables them to keep going, etc.
DeltaLitProf
(769 posts)Many of the most expensive textbooks would never be printed if their publishers could not price them up enough to recoup at least the cost of producing them. They just don't sell enough copies.
As with so many things in education, we need to socialize these costs so that we're not pricing our students out of getting the educations they'll need to contribute to society.
OneTenthofOnePercent
(6,268 posts)Ever have service work done on a high end car at "certified mechanic"? Students willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to go to a university will surely pay $500+ for their textbooks.
Personally, I bought all my textbooks second hand. They are usually like 50-75% off used online.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)BTW, students "willing to pay tens of thousands?"
is any student willing to pay that?
is any parent willing?
students/parents/guardians, etc. pay it because they find they have to to get their kid the education.
IMHO college should be free and paid for.
Same as insurance, in that, highschool , then college(or trade school, 2 year or 4 year) in the long run gets someone more than they normally would
so a free education (federally funded) goes far to pay it forward.
A federal national community service for 2 years, (not military) but local with free education either after, or during would help on many fronts (including the unemployment rate)
and the benefits for all people in the US who might complain about extra taxes would pay for itself later on and probably after a few years of graduates, be neutral out/in.
imho.
Why should wealth dictate where one can go (or that just say 5% of others get the scholarships that the wealthy person can just buy into?)
Or why does one need to have that football scholarship, if there is a better way.
Maybe that would go toward making sports less important and real life more important(being that those that become rich from sports are few and far between in real life.)
(especially with what is being found about being hit in the head as football players normally are.)
ChazII
(6,205 posts)whenever possible. What really made me outraged was a used algebra work that was $80 and his used algebra text for $100+ and this was at a community college.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)because many of my classes require that you have a online code for your online homework - and that online code is only packaged with the NEW textbooks. You can buy the code seperately but if you don't get your used textbook at a rock bottom price, then the price you pay for the code+used book is not much difference from just buying a new textbook. In some cases it's cheaper if you buy the online code and e-book, but again, often the e-books don't have page numbers so it can be difficult to follow the readings the prof assigns.
Plus, it seems they change textbooks every other year. So, for instance, I had one textbook I needed for one class in winter term, then again for that fall term...by the time I could sell it in the next winter term, they had switched textbooks, so everyone behind me had to buy new and I couldn't sell my old one.
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)Ebay also has a textbook sales site - I think it's called Half-price books.
Orrex
(63,216 posts)These weren't new interpretations of his work; they were simply reformatted & reprinted, demanding fresh outlay of $50 to $75 for writings that hadn't really changed much since his death 400 years earlier. I was pretty steamed.
But then I learned about Calculus textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars and which likewise need to be bought new each semester. Now that's outrageous and offensive.
College as a whole is a disgusting machine for squeezing profits out of the students and their families. As a priority, actual education is a very distant second place, at best.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)A damn shame, but there it is.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)I think we're an hour past "racket" and into full-on larceny if you ask me.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Only the high bidder gets through.
Otherwise, settle for a different door.
WooWooWoo
(454 posts)math.
It's not like math changes every year, its been the same since, well, ever.
ChazII
(6,205 posts)HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)there are also a lot more "ancillary" materials that are part of the product. Cut-down versions of bigger texts can save money but not as much as one would think, and the used-book buy back market for the cut downs is very limited and so the buyback's values are often lower--which adds to their relative price..
In 1976, the text for my 1st semester bio class had no color plates, and few photos. The illustrations were generally line drawings. We thought the book expensive at $35 for a new copy--in inflation corrected dollars that's the equivalent of $140. I bought a used copy for ~$20.
Modern intro bio books have color on every page, and almost every page has illustrations that aren't free. Printing technology is much improved now and production costs should be lower, but contemporary books are supported by online webpages, with chapter outlines, concept maps, downloadable illustrations, animations, on-line quizzes
etc. It costs money to host the stuff on-line but the publishers do it to be competitive and the cost goes into the book.
All the things added in...the books are probably not unusually priced in historic terms, but if the book and the ancillaries aren't used...well it's just a lot of money spent on something you don't use. That's always the rub. Some of that depends on how the instructor pitches the course, and some of it depends on whether a student decides reading the text is worth the effort.
Most publishers are glad to produce special editions consisting of selected chapters used by a program or a single instructor. 3 years ago I taught in a program that used such a text. It was a book cut down from a popular advanced high school bio book. It included 9 chapters because the biology for prenursing class I taught only covered 1 chapter--20 pages per week. The book it was cut from had the typical 40+ chapters.
A new hard bound copy of that book cost $150, a new copy of the cut version cost $73. Half the price for 1/4 of the book. In terms of value that book played very differently as a used copy. Students received $10 dollars from the college bookstore... and that was the only place they could sell it. The cut-down version was so specialized to the program I taught in that book buyers refused it.
The full-length textbook was in the used book market. It was and still is available on-line and in private bookstores around many campuses. It had all the chapters, including those of the cutdown version. I recommended students buy it when the campus bookstore ran out of cutdowns...which it almost always did. The buy-back for the complete text was and still is $10-$12...it may or may not include an unused access code for the online materials...depends on whether previous owners went on line, but that can be purchased through the publishers website.
maggiesfarmer
(297 posts)Don't get me wrong, they're pricey, but consider that a new hardback fiction novel costs around $25.
In terms of information density, the typical college textbook carries far more than a novel. College textbooks are almost always authored by college professors, whose time is valuable by most measures. Beyond authoring, the amount of review that goes into a college textbook goes far beyond the review a novel gets and requires the time of another college professor (or comparable training). Just the effort of crafting sets of problems, their solutions and verifying those solutions can be measured in thousands of hours. As an undergraduate, I was part of calculus class that was "dry running" a pre-publication version of a textbook that two professors had written -- the coordination of soliciting and collecting feedback across my class and the other two involved was a full time job.
Beyond that, textbooks generally have a smaller circulation, so the fixed costs have to be distributed across a smaller customer base. This gets worse with higher level specialty subjects.
I'm sure companies are making a nice profit off textbooks, but I don't think they're out of line with other new book costs. We may be justified in complaining about text book prices, but the complaint is just as valid with any books as far as I can tell.
Tangential comment #1: I do think e-books are the right direction for text books in particular, especially if they start selling them with free upgrades as new revisions are published.
Tangential comment #2: I was enrolled in a graduate class, with a highly specialized topic. The professor required us to use the textbook of which he was the primary author. It was one of two books on the subject available, and certainly was more geared for that class than the other, but it still irked me.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)must add to the costs.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)I had a small part in getting a high school history textbook moving a few years back; that was non-trivial at points on its own, and it wasn't exactly on the level of a university text.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)I've rarely taken classes that require the really expensive texts. I have known students who don't even bother to purchase the textbooks, just go to class and take good notes. That works in a surprising number of classes. Me, I've always bought the text.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Pretty much any freshman history class has a giant hardcover copy of the Abridged History Of Goddamn Near Everything (73rd Ed.) that costs a hundred and thirty dollars or whatnot. Once I got past those courses most of my textbooks were, well, of a price that would make a typical undergrad wince, but not really over-the-top horrible. The exceptions were a few obscure or upper-level courses where there isn't much out there or there's a tiny circulation for the books.
I did pay $120 for a paperback-sized ancient Greek textbook, but it's a good enough one that I don't actually regret that - even if I was annoyed that it came back into print the next year for twenty bucks..
kiva
(4,373 posts)check out Amazon's Gold Box Deal for today (Sunday) - they have 2000 Kindle editions of various textbooks and study guides for 80% off today - I found an immigration text I'd been wanting for a reasonable price.
And yes, I know some people here don't shop Amazon for a variety of good reasons, but for those who do you might find one or two books you need there.
Publiuus
(31 posts)Education these days can be a ripoff. That being said, I have two advanced degrees. Most recently earned a masters in engineer. The whole thing cost less than $10,000, books included. However, I have a friend that recently got a two year degree that cost $80000. She got ripped off on that. Like everything else, pay attention to what you are buying. I am going to start teaching as adjunct facult this fall at our local state university. the first thing I intend to do is review a text book that is one edition behind the required book. They are available for $10. My students will appreciate it, I hope.
Viking12
(6,012 posts)Frequently, publishers buy up the used copies of past editions making them unavailable on the wholesale market. If the University bookstore cannot secure copies to stock, you may not be able to require that textbook per University policy.
Publiuus
(31 posts)Any text that te university will require has to be available in the book store. I'll keep the current edition as the requirement, but off the equivalent reading and problems from the older edition. Students can choose what's best for them.
Viking12
(6,012 posts)As an adjunct, don't create too much extra work for yourself. As I said before, your concern for student expense is admirable, but there are limits to what you can do without flaming out early. Unfortunately, such efforts are rarely recognized and even more rarely rewarded.
Publiuus
(31 posts)Not worried about flaming. My real job hires the majority of the graduates and donates billions of dollars to the state and tens of millions to the university directly. The people I train today are the people who work for me tomorrow.
justanidea
(291 posts)The best is when you spend $250 on a textbook and then, at the end of the semester, when you go to sell it back the lady at the book store says "Sorry we can't give you anything for this. This is the 587th edition. The 588th edition just came out last week and we're switching to that." 
Last year I had to buy a small little book for a class that only cost $20. I went to sell it back and the lady said "We can give you $1 for this one."
I was just like, no thanks, I'll just burn it in my fireplace/use it to prop up a table/keep it as emergency TP. 
ChoppinBroccoli
(3,784 posts)I would buy the required texts for about $100-$200 apiece (this was in the '90s), and then at the end of the semester, I'd sell them back and get about $10-$20 for each one. Enough beer money to have a pretty fun end-of-the-semester party.
What really upset me, though, is when I'd take a class and see that one of the "required" texts was a book written BY THE PROFESSOR who taught the class.
I can't imagine what going to school nowadays must be like, what with easy computer access and the internet and all. When I was in college, I did all of my papers on an electric typewriter, and I thought it was pretty cool that it could erase a letter if I made a mistake. There were many nights I'd finish writing a paper (due the next morning, of course) and then still be sitting there typing it as the sun came up.
jsr
(7,712 posts)
elleng
(130,974 posts)and I suspect won't be cured by on-line availability; they'll raise hell in courts about 'copyright.'
We need antitrust enforcement.
Lady Freedom Returns
(14,120 posts)I only had to buy a couple of books that I was going to use all 4 years. All the other were $15 a book as long as I returned it in time and in good condition.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)I get that feeling. A lot.
My alma mater had two of its presidents IN A ROW forced to resign because, combined, they had bilked the school out of $1,000,000.
All that... for a glorified PR man.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)I notice it wouldn't be anything particularly difficult to download for absolutely free all the books needed for a BS in math.
The actual texts you need for a BS could run you zero dollars if the professors cared to indulge your pocketbook.
I'm not holding my breath until that happens.
coffeenap
(3,173 posts)Chegg.com
My daughter has used this company for two semesters now. Very quick delivery, very low prices, gave her credit for returns without any questions, and gives plenty of time at the end of the semester. I believe they will also provide e-book access for the first week or so if you ordered late. She has been very satisfied and has saved more than 75% of the cost of purchase.