Steering clear of the college bookstore
3 Comments Published by clay April 26th, 2008 in Education, State and Local Politics, U.S. Politics.The average college textbook bill is pushing $1,000 a year. Jill Barshay tells us how students and professors are dodging high prices.
It seems crazy that the professors are not aware of how much a textbook cost. Professors should only ask publishers to provide exactly (no glossy pages, extra notes, etc) what they want or professors should find another way to teach the class.
At Cal Pol, during summer of 07, For the six classes I took, I spent almost $700 dollars in text books, and I wasn’t even old enough to work. Higher education is coming at a higher price. There are certain teachers, however, that are choosing to rage war against the student bookstores. My teacher, Laurie Shrage, who taught me Current Debates About Sexuality in the fall chose to not assign ANY books or reading material for her class, and instead posting everything online. By doing this, she said she was “saving valuable paper and rainforest trees”, while she was also saving students the financial hardship of being able to afford information for the class. Bless Laurie Shrage.
Yes there is no doubt that college text books are way too outrages. I have paid over $120 for just one text book and that was used! Why is it when you resell it you only get $10-$30 for it. That’s not fair at all. When I go to use my brother’s book he used the year before they say I need a new book. Although most editions are hardly noticeably different, the problems and activities are all jumbled up. I never ever buy a book from the school book store. I first check myspace and facebook for anyone selling the books I need. Then I check half.com, pazap.com, uloop.com for cheap used books. I think professors should really think twice about requiring text books. In my classes other than math, we hardly ever use the book but you would never know that till after the course has been completed. One communication professor collected old text book editions from students. She used those text books to teach from and allowed us to barrow it over the quarter. Why doesn’t congress do something about these insane text book revisions. I do understand some classes need up to date material but does math ever really change? NO! Does communication ever really change? NOT $60 in change!
These outrages school fees are what are keeping some from pursuing a higher education. Although the importance of higher education can be argued, it still is not fair to detour students who want to go to college.
its true that the books are so expensive but most of the teachers are aware of how expensive they are. even though we are not full time students we still have to go and pay for both the class and the books. its unbelievable on how much you have to pay for a used book let alone a new one. in my last class (geology) the book costed three times as much as what i paid for the class. and also this semester my math class used book only costed ten dollars less than the new version, what type of well used book only costs ten dollars less than a new one. and another thing that i hate is when the class decides that they need to upgrade to a new versionand the new version was three times as much as the older version was now. i just hope that f.a. can cover most of my tuition and books.