He's pond scum!

@burnedout: I hope you're talking about "symbolic" packets. If you're burning the actual course contents, that's some very expensive kindling!

The bundles are news to me. Sure, there were overpriced textbooks and half of my upper-division coursework wasco-authored by the professors teaching the course (not surprising having gone to this particular university), but most did what they could to make the course materials affordable and accessible.

On the other hand, a professor last semester wrote her entire curriculum and put it on her website free of charge, and I kept finding myself wishing I had a printed copy so I wasn't tethered to my computer all day long. You just can please some people, I guess. :)

Honestly, most professors understand how expensive books are, and are willing to help out their students as much as they can.

On the first day of one class, I told the professor that the bookstore was charging 30% over list price for the textbook he'd assigned, and there were no used copies available. (It was a cellular biophysics textbook, so it was expensive already.) He got really angry, marched over to the bookstore and demanded to see the manager. He got the price lowered, but encouraged all of us to just buy it used online, where copies were readily available. Professors are usually not down with the textbook publishing industry scams.

So beware books re-branded by colleges.

It strains their credibility when their material is riddled with errors.

And you better believe I held on to my expensive anthologies. Even if you barely cracked it open, the bookstores only give a fraction of the cost if you sell it back.

[durbin.senate.gov]

...it's a sticky issue to legislate because of academic freedom. Regulating PRICES is one thing, but different textbooks approach the subject from different perspectives and with different content. You can't just tell a prof what they have to teach with.

If you want to know the contents of a package and their component ISBNs, I would actually suggest trying the publishers customer service, you can find their numbers easily online. I've never bothered with their consumer options in the automated menus, but you could just pretend to be a retailer. Typically, I'm not asked for account information by the CRSs until I ask them for net pricing on a title.

But what takes the cake are the class notes that some professors make you buy. I mean, come one, after paying thousands of dollars, you'd think that some stupid notes would be complimentary.

Unfortunately, that was ruled copyright infringement.

The above also usually forces you to buy from the college bookstore since the versions are usually customized.

I just purchased a bunch of books for my classes this semester today and the price differences are amazing. Bookstore wanted almost $250 for an Accounting book. I find the same version online, an international ed. but the same info, for under $40 shipped. I've also saved money by buying a previous version of the textbook as well as the required dreaded online membership (including a e-copy of the newest edition)...which still saved me at least 50 dollars.

I can beat the stories for the nicest professor. He used his own book (It was considered the best one in the field.) On the first day of class he announced that it was currently out of print, but we could get a photocopy of the book at his office. I went to get it and found out that he was giving them out for free! Not even a photocopy charge for a 500 page book!

On the other hand, in 1983 I paid $150 for a 180 page thermodynamics book that was almost unintelligible and never used again for the class (so I couldn't even sell it).

i'm not suggesting you roll over - i certainly didn't. just be prepared to face the possibility that things might not work out in your favor, even if you're right.

So, according to the publisher, students are saving $10 each. When I pointed out to the publisher rep that I could get the old edition online for $10 and how does a $70 access code save me money, he sniffed and said, "it's beneficial to everyone, even the publisher."

Yup, that's the future of textbooks. Full price, no used copies, no library copies and they delete after 6 months.

Textbook sales are a complete racket.

it's really amazing what you can do with the tax code to save a few bucks...

@Oranges w/ Cheese in rainy Central FL:

One of my classes had a bundle, and the class didn't even use all components!

I bought a bundle, used, and the individual components were listed on the packing list. Since the book store sold me completely crappy beat up used books, I returned them and got new ones online for much less. I also only bought what was "necessary" and I didn't even open two of the three books I did buy!

I could only imagine the bookstore clucking their tongues as I try to sell them those books in the same condition as they were sold to me.

I usually tell my students not to purchase texts until the second or third week of class so they can decide what they need (it helps that most of our courses are taught using our own materials, with the texts only used for additional study).

Then, a couple of years ago, the school signed a contract with a company called XanEdu. They publish course packs. Professors in our department were literally no longer allowed to use the school copy shop. But XanEdu charged students around $60 for that same course pack. Granted, XanEdu gave students online access to the course materials, which the school copy shp didn't - but most students would rather just have the cheaper paper version. The school wanted to appear technologically forward-thinking when they made this change, Xeroxed course packs being quite old-fashioned, but they didn't think about the costs to the students at all. The individual professors did, though, and many of them were annoyed.

First, in general the bundles are cheaper than buying the pieces individually (although maybe not as cheap as online).

Second, most of these bundles are either loose (binding-less) paper, come with some sort of online access card, a CD, or most recently with another book. The wrapping keeps them from getting separated, or even worse, stolen.

Third, we try our best to warn people to not unwrap things until they are ABSOLUTELY sure they need them. It is corporate policy not to buy back bundles, plus the aforementioned items could be stolen or used and we wouldn't know it. We also tend to put a sticker on them, so that if someone re-wrapped it (which most college people aren't smart enough to do) we would know then as well.

In general, we will be nice if you are nice to us about book returns and purchases. We don't like the prices any more than you do -- after all, we make crappy margins and have to deal with irate parents and students! So when we tell you the rules about buying things, please listen and we'll work with you. I don't know how many people have told me sob stories about buying the wrong book for a section and we've exchanged them (assuming they buy through us and not online -- remember that margin?).

Also... At least in our case, we'll quite often buy back the parts of the bundle individually at the end of the year, when we -know- we'll use them again. But hey, we are actually fairly well liked by our customers. ... Well, except those that don't do their research, buy through an online middleman, and pay upwards of 20% more than if they would've come in and talked to us! It just goes to show you -- online isn't always cheaper, make sure you shop around! ALWAYS!

He said "We MIGHT eventually make it to that book, but I seriously doubt it. Return it and if we really really rush thru this first one, you can go out and buy the 2nd text."

There are professors I've had classes with or friends who teach who tried to escape the whole textbook racket by assembling their own course packets. They would try to gather course materials from journal articles, book excerpts, etc. The problem was that if you're trying to assemble a semester's worth of material, getting copyright permission for maybe dozens of articles was a logistical, administrative, and/or expensive nightmare. Likewise, they would often have to forgo materials they would have liked to include because they couldn't get copyright permission, or couldn't get it at a price they could in good conscience charge students.

In many cases, the efforts to create homegrown course materials failed: high-quality materials couldn't be obtained, copyright expenses would ultimately total those of a comparable textbook, and it was a huge time sink for the faculty.
And let's face it; colleges are increasingly relying on adjunct faculty who get paid approximately jack shit. They aren't compensated enough to justify their spending scores or hundreds of hours preparing course materials.

$200 for a textbook? REALLY? In what kind of way is this justified? If the books were placed at a more attainable $50-$75 per item, there might be less after-market purchases. Publishers could also buy back copies of the book and sell the used books directly through their websites (or to Universities) ensuring them a chunk of the used market as well.

On the other hand, he did let me turn it in late so I could go to a concert I wanted to see and write the paper on that.

@schwnj:

And you teach what subject?

Yo, schools are businesses. Even those "nonprofit" schools operate like a business and must meet operating expenses.

Tuition is the only sure fire means of collecting money from the customers (students). Books are a supplemental means of collection money from the customers (students), much in the way bank fees or baggage fees are revenue streams for other industries.

If the schools don't make enough $ off the book sales, the schools will be forced to raise tuition to cover their operating costs.

Remember that little fact when you rent/borrow your books and then whine about rising tuition rates.

Funny story (and o/t) I had during my days as a math major: This one math teacher would go through the regular first-day rules-of-the-road. The final rule was about book reports. Yeah, we were wondering the same thing. Book reports in a math class? What gives? He goes on to list the requirements and then he gets to what he calls the most important one: They had to be written on the backs of $20 bills. Well, the class just cracked up. And for the rest of my days there, whenever there was a new student in the class, he'd go through the routine and we'd all play along. Ah, fun times in calculus class.

/but it would have been a different way for him to make some extra money.

@Oranges w/ Cheese in rainy Central FL: You should definately speak with the teachers of each class. I found that most of the teachers I spoke with back in school hated the fact that the books were so expensive.

If your teacher refuses to give you that type of textbook info, do you really want that person to have control of your grades?

a) buy the old version and see if you can get by. They can't really add more content to the book usually, and if they do, it probably wont be in the prof curriculum. And if it is, its probably not important. I highly doubt there is several hundred dollars worth of information in that packet that is not available on the internet.

b) use your friends packet to see what the content is. If its a one time use packet (ie worksheet), I am sure you can find a copy of it once you tell someone you don't have one, or even make your own. Or write the answers on a separate piece od paper.

The ones I always thought were rip offs were the spiral bound books the profs made themselves. You cant buy them used, since they usually break down and are lecture specific (like new/missing lectures, new slides etc) while the copy place marks them up. And you can't photocopy any of it since the copy places are in cahoots. But most were reasonably priced

Quite frankly, it was annoying. Especially when you'd shell out $100 for that little 'packet' only to get it open and realize the stuff shrink wrapped w/ the book was all junk. I always held out hope the teacher would make us use it, since we had to buy it, but I can honestly say that out of 6 years of college, I can only think of one 'packet' I had to buy where we used more than just the main book inside.

I'd say email the professor teaching the course and ask him or her personally if the whole bundle is needed, or even if you can use a different edition. Unless your professor is a jerk (which, to be fair, there are a few that are), they'll do what they can to help you save money. Surprisingly enough, there are quite a few professors whom also find the high costs of textbooks rather absurd.

Part of the problem I see is that professors post the syllabus just a short time before the class starts up, and so there is not enough time to order the books online and get them shipped. In law school I generally tried to buy online, but often not all the books were available online, and there were a few times when the books didn't come until a couple of weeks into the semester, at which point I was screwed. It might work for an underwater basketweaving class, but not for criminal law. And using old books might work for other subjects, but not for law school where we go by exactly what is in the book.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Do the textbook companies offer to do major print jobs for the university at a reduced cost?

@Ferris152: You are very correct, in all your points. But if you give a professor/TA the choice between a lot of effort that seems unappreciated vs. minimal effort, after a few years, most are going to start picking the minimal effort option, which also happens to cost the student tens or hundreds of $$.

Some positive reinforcement for the staff already trying to make the effort would be good. There are definitely lots of unprepared professors (and TAs!), so give the ones trying to help the students some appreciation - or at least do the minimum and pretend to actually make use of that work. Otherwise, they won't keep it up and in the end, the students are getting the most screwed.

I'm sure there are plenty of professors & TAs with kinder hearts and more altruism than me (This is why I am not a professional educator). They may keep posting the pdfs. But if you ever get stuck with a grinch like me, let them know when their work is helping you out.

@anonymousryan: i can beat that. one of my polisci profs wrote a hardcover textbook on american politics that he re-published every semester with a new edition number so that you 1) could only find it at the 2 bookstores in town b/c it was so new & 2) couldn't sell it back at the end of the semester.

what was the difference between editions? he would reorder the chapters & the questions at the end of the chapters so that you couldn't do graded homework assignments or in-class quizzes (that required looking up specific pages in the book) without the most recent edition.

jerk.

@DH405: With the hole-punched pseduo-book I had, they put it in a box and then shrink-wrapped the box. Then inside, they shrink-wrapped the pages into packets.

OTOH, if I had known anyone else in the class, it would have been super-easy to split the cost of the 'book'+photocopying. Super easy when it's loose pages.

I felt so degraded that I have never been back to the school bookstore.

@Areyouagoodlittleconsumer: There are no "rights" for anyone here, and you're kidding yourself if you think a professor is going to help bring down the industry. The profs are getting kickbacks from the publishing companies. It's been going on for years.

A packet burning bonfire would be great though--next semester students have to buy the new stuff!

@coren: What happens is the publisher creates an entirely new ISBN when 2 or more texts/workbooks are bundled together (sometimes known as packets) for a given class. Typically the items are shrinkwrapped together. Unless you know the individual ISBN numbers of the components it can be a hassle to track down. The goal of any (good) sales rep is to change the ISBN from year to year so that the used book market doesn't recognize the "old" packet and force unsuspecting students to buy the "new" components, which are usually either a newer edition plus a workbook, software, or something else that realistically probably doesn't add any real value. Most (though not consumerist readers!) students just buy the packet rather than figure out what's actually included.

On the much, much less ethical hand, though, you've got departments that unequivocally require students to buy books authored within the department, which then aren't used at all by the specific professor teaching the class.

Last year -- this particular instance really gets my knickers bunched -- I was required to buy, and required to destroy, a high-gloss workbook vanity-published by someone inside the department. It cost about $24, and the professor used six pages from it that weren't even slightly germane to what we were doing in class, just to render our copies unsalable. Worse, the "author" of this "book" actually lists it as a publication, even though it's nothing more than tarted up, two-color, plasticoiled classnotes.

I worked for a major academic technology publisher for a number of years. I agree that books are expensive; however, understand that publishers need a continuous revenue stream in order to continue publishing books. If you don't buy books then they can't pay authors to write them and eventually: voila--no money, no author, no books & no publisher. Then what will you read? This is simplifying the issue a bit, of course, but at its core publishing is like any other business.

The point is to save money where you can by not buying books you won't need and/or won't care about once the course is done.

Your point about it not being out there 10 years ago isn't really effective in refuting points of my argument, though. 10 years ago the Internet was still a growing medium and lacked many of the resources we have today, or ones we have today that existed back then paled in comparison to what they are today. So yeah, obviously a decade or more ago something like my plan wouldn't have worked out. You're also talking about a period of time where college was quite a bit cheaper than it is today, and no, I'm not just talking about inflation or anything.

The point I was getting is that for a LOT of things, the information is out there, freely available and just as good as what's in an overpriced and published text book. Learn what you can get on-line for free, and you'll benefit financially in the long run.

Well this reminds me of a stats book I used in 2001 which had all sorts of mistakes. The book's author (a prof from Baylor in Waco, TX) put up a webpage with all the corrections for his mistakes. However, I didn't know about this site until after spending a half hour trying to work one problem only to realize that the problem was impossible due to typographical errors. When I showed the prof. she was confused too. That is when I concluded that this book wasn't to be trusted. I never sold this book back, because it has too many editorial marks in it so I feel weirdly "invested" in it somehow. I sure hope the next edition was better.

Even if the school's administration won't do anything about it, this sounds like the perfect use of a crusader press. Quick, someone pass this along to Ric Romero before the November sweeps!

I don't even bother with selling books back to the bookstore. I know they won't give me anything worthwhile anyway. I sell them on Amazon..well...the ones I don't want to keep that is.

Oh....bless you for that! I seriously hope I get at least a couple of professors like you!

In the meantime, a packet burning bonfire might be an entertaining protest if it's conducted safely with no risk to others.

This.

I had to deal with this for my Spanish class. I *thought* I was saving money by buying my book on Amazon...turns out I needed the online access in order to do my homework. I was NOT amused at having to shell out another $95 for the online access code. The only silver lining to this is that the same materials are used for the next level Spanish class and the code is good for 18 months.

@DadsterNC:

I had a rhetoric professor who made it a part of the course that students would have to debate what should happen to that portion of the royalties that were due to our class. I don't remember what charity won out, but it was novel solution, in my view

@floraposte:
No, 6,000 is (for the thing I'm looking at) small--stats are a funny thing; I'm not looking at schools, I'm looking at students. I'm not suggesting it's small as schools go--I'm suggesting it's small as far as the typical experience for the american /student/.
Looked at from that perspective, most students' experience will be at a larger school--not because there are more of them (although I was surprised at the number of largschools) but ptrecisely because there enrollments are so large. By only looking at the number of schools, and not their enrollments, you're skewing the results badly. look at (for example) the enrollment of the smallest 1,747 schools combined, now look at the largest 56 schools. Who has more students? the top 56. By triple.
The majority of students go to a school of greater than 10,000 enrollment. The largest single student poulation is in schools of between 10 and 20,000 students.

That's not totally true - the list that's displayed online limits the characters and is often automated to the ISBN. I list the books in my syllabus, but I have no control over the text list posted on the department's site. It's better to just ask or check the bookstore's website if you want to know which books are in a packet.

It's a good plan, I think.

@menty666:

It was on my reading list in law school--you wouldn't believe what they charged!

Actually, I was one of the few people who bought an old Black's Law Dictionary on my own--I can't imagine why people were buying new ones from the bookstore, but there they were lined up like idiots.

The plurality of secondary institutions have between 1000 and 2499 students; the number of institutions with a student enrollment over 5000 is approximately a third of the number of institutions with enrollment under.

They tried this with me in one of my classes...I saw a $130 bundle on the bookstore website and waited until the classes started. Lo and behold, the "bundle" was just the regular textbook with a CD attached. I was able to get the ISBN number off the back of the book since they wrapped it with the barcode to the outside, and found the same book used on Amazon for $50. What also irritated me would be when I shelled out $200 for books only to find out that what the bookstore called "required," the professor said, "Only if you want to buy it."

Actually the professors often times don't even realize that they are ordering a packet, the sales rep will just say oh you want Book A and Software B, just order 32423 and your students will save 5% (of course that is off of list).

In my coursework, lectures could not possibly cover all the relevant material, and hard science courses (by which I mean biology is essentially "soft" by comparison) are much more self-driven.

My Intro to Algebraic Topology prof had also written the text we used, although it was published by Dover press, which has reasonable prices around $30 new. The books are paperback and ugly as hell, but knowledge is knowledge.

My Torts prof had us purchase a print-out of her manuscript from the bookstore for her class. At ~$30, that is a total steal compared to the $175 that each of my other casebooks cost.

But in general, I paid $400-600/semester in undergrad for mostly used textbooks, and I just spent $1000 for mostly new books this semester. Viva la academia!

That said it is still evil, because, really, if you can't pick up three books from the store you don't deserve to be taking a class, and list price is a joke.

It's a real waste of resources. There are thousands and thousands of used books from these packages sitting around because students can't sell them after they're finished with them.

@Raekwon:

Ah, the profs themselves--that's just rotten.

a) I always checked the library. I know we've had a few people here say NOT to do this, but I didn't go and scream at the librarian, I used the online card catalog and was happy when I struck gold. My college let me do online searches of all the colleges in Ohio, and online requests. This is how I got Malcolm X's autobiography, for instance. Nearly 10 people in my class borrowed that book from me throughout the semester and the school allowed me to do extensions online.

b) I bought a lot of old editions. The 4th Edition is generally just as good as the 5th Edition, and one costs $5 and one costs $100.

c) I borrowed or rented books as often as possible. There is never any need for you to buy books to freshman Gen Eds. There are thousands of copies of the Biology 101 book floating around your campus, just make friends with someone who has it.

By the way, when I require my text I make .pdf copies of the chapters available online so that students don't have to pay for it.

As for the efforts required to get the material ready to teach a class, I'd have to respond that having the necessary materials ready for class is a part of the job of a professor (and their TAs). Professors say that student's don't prepare for class enough, but I've taken a lot of classes from professors who weren't prepared. We would end up playing games because the prof didn't read the chapters we were supposed to be discussing that day.

@rugman11:

Did you actually read my later post, though? "I know there is no realistic way ... for libraries to be a source of the texts..."

What I'd really like to see is a system where universities go to a more open-source model. There is simply no reason that I (or anyone else) should be shelling out dollars for Plato, Kant, and Carroll when those works aren't copyrighted. Similarly, no-one should be held up for ransom over the fundamental theorem of calculus, or any of the other million examples of things that, publishers be dammned, just don't change. Of course, some materials will have to be bought and paid for under a ull-blown copyright model, but for much of undergrad, it's just a silly sysytem, where students continually pay publishers big bucks to kill trees for works long out of copyright. It simply seems to me that when and if there is a pdf./kindle-type revolution for these kinds of materials, a library is a natural fit for distribution.

Bull!!! The bookstore staff could certainly find out what's in the packet and make it known -- if they wanted to, which they don't because it will cost them lost sales.

As a faculty member for over thirty years AND a parent of three college students I can tell you that it's the bookstores and the publishers who are making the $$$ -- not the textbook authors and certainly not the faculty who select the texts.

I told as many folks as I could in my class about it, and many returned their textbooks to the bookstore on the first day of class.

Also, another textbook strategy FTW: buy previous editions of books. Page numbers and chapters are generally the same or very close. No one needs the 47th edition of a Math 101 textbook.

My experience in college was and has been that there is a direct ratio between the effectiveness and laziness of a professor and the price of their required textbooks.

And you'll find other institutions will be similar. We may be smaller but we offer fewer classes. A larger institution may have a bigger budget, but they have more faculty, students, and classes to purchase materials for.

@oneandone:

But yours sounds like the perfect solution--if the students don't take advantage, that's their problem! I know I would have jumped at the pdf solution.
You can lead a student to course materials, but you can't make him think.

It takes two to tango .

If they wouldn't to reform the college/education industry like health care this would be a perfect example of out of control costs and un-necessary expenditures .

Unfortunetly you're screwed if the professor or school tests on THAT text . Most subjects though I'd bet you could find an alternative .

I heard the text book industry is under pressure especially when dealing in grade to high school texts to cut down on features like metallic inks , embossing or any extravagant graphics because local governments want costs lowered . Perhaps these companies are trying to make it up on the secondary education market .

My classes start September 22nd, less than a month away, and I am still not able to look up what the required textbooks are. Once the list is available, it is only through the campus bookstore's website, and they NEVER list ISBN's or even what edition - just a garbled title and author. The only way to know for sure what book you need is to go to the bookstore and wander the shelves, so that you can see the book firsthand. Between the short notice of publishing access to a book list, and the lack of specific information in that list, it makes it very difficult to order books online and get them before the first midterms are approaching.

@SarcasticDwarf:

Oh, also--I want to make clear, I'm not against college libraries, librarians or their staff. On the contary, college libraries are, in my experience, nothing short of amazing. I also know that, as currently set up, there is no realistic way for university libraries to really be asource of the texts for their undergrad population. I'm simply angry at the textbook racket as it often plays out in American colleges, and I /do/ think that in time, libraries could play a role in a more open-source method of getting course materials to students.

I've been out for over 10 years now and even then my book costs were 500 or more a semester and I'd be lucky to see 90.00 back at buyback. Had I had the option of getting lower cost books outside the store system I would have happily taken advantage of it.

While I'm not advocating piracy, I'm surprised more student's don't just pool together to buy a single copy, use scanning tech to make their own copies then pawn it off on amazon and split the proceeds.

The year after year push for a new edition because the foreword has changed or there's a new image on page 56 is ridiculous. It harms students who are already working several jobs to pay for educations of declining quality and market value. In many cases the only reason they get any degree at all is because potential employers want to see the piece of paper.

FTFY

I love my tiny crazy college; I fear the day I have to move onto another school because I doubt I'll be so lucky.

I'd point more fingers at Deans and other administrators before going after the profs. Both my husband, who used to be a math professor, and profs I had in my uni days were appalled at some of these shenanigans, but were powerless to do much about it when they were under edicts by administrators.

I did have one prof who was a total asshat and was out to sell his self-published book, but I had way more who would groan and mutter about being forced to require new editions...and then some of them would say, "Look, go get last year's and we'll make it work."

Like I said I'm sure someone could attempt to fight the system and see where it goes. I was done with it all so I didn't care. Just sharing this as an example of what professors and textbook publishers do to milk you dry.

Maybe I'm just missing something.

@nova3930: A lot of my profs specifically wrote books for their classes because they either didn't like what was on the market, there was nothing like it on the market, or they just wanted to write a book. In most cases, though, the books were not outrageously priced and if you truly could not afford it, the professors would have a stash that they'd lend out to students.

@Ferris152: students should be demanding a price cut to tuition and that efforts be made by universities to limit the unnecessary waste and unbridled greed involved in the textbook market.

My TA years have made me cynical about students and free reading materials. The prof & I went to great lengths to make sure that not only did we only use free sources for required readings (this was for a series of envt science classes, so we had all public access journal articles, news articles, government reports, etc) but we copied the materials ourselves, punched holes in them, and distributed them in sections in month. Easily 40% of the students never picked them up. Maybe they looked them up in the syllabus and tracked them down online? Doubtful.

The next year, tired of sorting through thousands of copies, I just put PDFs of all the files on our courses' web portals, flagging them with the dates they needed to be read by. We had free printing in the department for anyone who wanted hard copies. Midway through the semester I started checking who logged in to do the reading.... less than 75%.

Both those efforts required a significant amount of work from the staff and very little in terms of results. Assigning the class to buy a text book (or bulk pack) 1) assures the staff that the students actually have the readings in their hands and may potentially be prepared for class 2) is a lot less work.

Bottom line: universities aren't going to go to efforts to make readings cheap/free if students aren't going to take advantage of opportunities already out there.

@MMD:

Well, that's one big reason large universities tend to have non-official bookstores just off-campus. I know ours was much, much cheaper.

@lpranal: Professors won't boycott anything. Most of the time they have a vested interest.

In college there was nothing I hated more than having a professor who required you to buy the textbook that he wrote. Kinda seemed like a conflict of interest to me...

Otherwise you were SOL.

Luckily I went to college in the 1970s when books were much cheaper. We didn't have many outlets for cheaper or used books, like Amazon. At my school, you'd submit your schedule to the bookstore and they'd bring you your pile of books. I was aghast that they cost $80! Now I work for a technical publisher who's getting into textbooks. I can't believe the prices on some of them. I really feel for you college-age people. But you can weep for me in two years when my daughter hits college.

I do like the suggestion to talk to the prof -- we aren't always aware what the bookstore stocks.

@treimel:

Wow--really, really small:

[nces.ed.gov]

@esc27: The royalties that most professors get from book sales will be a pittance compared to their salary. They're probably not recommending a book just so they can have some extra pocket change at the end of the semester. That being said, alot of profs have giant egos so of course their books will be the only one worth using, so it's conceivable they will make students buy their book for that reason but probably not just for the royalties.

@rugman11:

No, that's the best reason-the whole point of a library is the availability and diffusion of knowledge to those who could otherwise not afford it. Yes, why not 25? And this 2-year old "obsolete" textbook thing woukld go away quickly if publishers couldn't get away with it.

Also, your budget is not terribly representative as an entire student body of 6,000 is very small.

Same thing happened with my classes. A few of the teachers who been there longer were using books that could be purchased at retailers like barnes and noble. The younger ones used a bunch of books that had unique codes that you had to have to go online and do quizes. Couldn't purchase the code seperately.

Thats exactly what it is, people will find a way around it too.

@ModernTenshi04: I totally agree. It's a great idea to wait a bit and see if you'll actually use the book before spending $100+ on something that might turn out to be an expensive paperweight. I was always shocked at the number of people who would show up the first day with the book without getting any sense of whether the prof. would actually be using it or not. I actually found this more true in law school than I did in my undergrad. Buy the Criminal Code? No thanks, I'll just download it for free from the government's website and have a copy shop print and bind it for me (on recycled paper) for $15. Buy a book comprised 100% of publically available cases (with no commentary or analysis) almost all of which I can find online with my free (as a law student) lexisnexis access? Craziness!

@sn1per: That happened with me a few years ago (Earth sciences materials). I liked some aspects of it - I could print out lecture slides, punch holes in them, and add them to the 'textbook' in the correct location. On the other hand, the not-book text book cost quite a lot - very similar to what bound books cost. Luckily, I scavanged a binder, so I saved on that cost.

I have a tip that may work for some a small amount of people, but still, if you're bilingual, buy the book in another language. An economics book that I needed this semester costs $200 in English, but $50 in Spanish (same edition, same everything, except language).

This packet idea is ridiculous. In fact, the cost of higher education these days (which a lot of times, is worthless considering what you're going to earn with most degrees versus the amount of student loans you'll have) is too expensive and I'm curious to see how many students have needed to drop out this year because they can't afford it anymore and can't find work.

You'd think someone would start a website (ala rate my professors) that lists course packets.

I saved lots of money in college by using the Interlibrary loan feature of my library account. Usually my school would have a copy of the textbook, but it would be a reserve, that you couldn't check out and take home. It might just be an Illinois program, not sure if all states do it, but you could request a book from any library in Illinois and they would send it to your school's library. It only took a day or two. So I would request textbooks from other schools and just keep renewing them for the entire sememster. Free books!

As I had to pay my own way in college--I often chose classes based on what the textbooks were. As a politics major, we didn't often have conventional texts. Also, for liberal arts course, avoid introductory courses whenever possible. Those are the largest targets for the textbook publishers. Besides expensive texts, they also tend to be lecture hall classes. If you are fairly well-read, you'll do fine.

Total cost for every student who joined me? One 3" ring binder (we borrowed a previous student's book).

I bought the rest of my textbooks because everyone else was too lazy to scan in an entire book. Also, some of them were new enough, or updated enough, the author actually deserved their income.

The purpose of education is to get the skills to get a good job to make money to live the life you choose. Going more into debt than is necessary simply because you didn't stand up against the greed and stupidity inherent in the system isn't a very educated approach.

HA! I'm the Head of Collection Development at a university with ~6,000 students. Our book acquisitions budget is roughly $163,000 for the entire school. There is no way we could justify buying textbooks. If we buy for one class, why don't we buy for every class? If we buy one copy, why not 25? What's the use in having one copy of a textbook for a class with 25, 50, or 100 people in it? Why buy a textbook when a new edition is going to be published in two years anyway, rendering the old one obsolete? There are a hundred reasons for a library to not purchase textbooks and only one reason to do it: because the students don't want to spend their own money. That's a pretty lame reason.

I have spent thousands of dollars in textbooks that I've never even used, only to be told I couldn't resell it at the end of the semester because they are using a new version next year, or to get back like $20 for a nearly brand-new book I paid $200 for just months ago.

@tangent4: Professors get tiny royalty checks from textbooks.

Sure, I didn't like all of the assigned books but they don't constantly release new versions so I could sell a couple back or just eat the $8 cost of a paperback.

BTW, does anyone need a used copy of The Woman Warrior? I only made it about 20 pages in.

Textbook prices are the main reason I'm glad I spent so much time as a history major. I'm fine spending $300 bucks on books, so long as I get 20 books out of the deal.

My University's bookstore was more like the warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" than an actual *store*. Huge, cathedral-style roof; aisles that sprawled on forever, and dangerous ancient artifacts stored away in wooden boxes (hello there original Stockbridge curriculum).

Luckily for me, when I was in college, these kinds of shenanigans didn't fly at the school I graduated from. The college I transferred from, however, was (and still is) in the grip of publishers. I remember an art history teacher telling us she had worked out a deal with the bookstore to buy back our textbook for $80. This was 3 weeks into the course, and 3 weeks after we had to buy the book for $325.

Also, am I the only one here who never sold any of their books back?

Having always hated buying books that I never read, for my classes I now choose the cheapest text I can find, make it optional, and encourage the students to buy an old edition for $5 online. And, since my school has a ton of online full-text journal subscriptions, I can skip using a packet and simply hand out a reading list so that the students can look up the articles for free online.

@rugman11:

So do the students, unfortunately they don't have millions of dollars in acquisition budgets.

I bought the international version for $25 and dared him to take points off. His boss sided with me on the matter.

College textbooks are a racket and often not useful at all. Buy used, earlier versions, or international. Your bank account will thank you and you won't miss out on anything.

@Raekwon:

"Required" by whom? "expressly forbidden" by who or what?
Sorry, but the profs are absolutely to blame. The student owners of each copy of the book absolutely CAN, under US copyright law, make single photocopies of individual pages for just such an educational use.

We have standardized curricula across departments, so I get no choice in textbook. I teach philosophy, and in the intro class, NONE of the readings we use is under copyright. I've been pushing for years to use Project Gutenberg as an alternative, or to set up lulu.com printed books of Gutenberg texts for students who want a printed version (for $10 or whatever), but we persist in getting the $40 "readings" book, because the older members of the department are suspicious of "creative commons" and "out of copyright" and "lulu.com." (And, yeah, there would be students who couldn't be arsed to get texts if they weren't in the textbook, no matter how much they bitch about the cost of said textbook.)

But the bigger issue is that publishers will punish our bookstore if we don't abide by their restrictions. For example, they are not allowed to stock old editions of texts (new or used) once new ones come out. The changes in the philosophy texts are typically fairly minimal and we're all fine with using two editions (old and new) side by side. But if bookstore buys back used books of the prior edition and resells them once the new one is out, they are punished and the publisher won't sell the highly-necessary new chemistry textbook to them.

They also force us to take the bundles whether we want them or not. I try to let students know what they need and don't need if they can find things used, but it's not always easy to find the used stuff.

It's such a freaking waste of paper, too. It really bothers me.

That racket would have sent me straight to the dean of faculty or provost. It's immoral, discriminatory, and saturated with nothing but self-interest. Professors aren't gods, kids. You can appeal higher on the food chain when they try to pull something like this.

I've found that most professors these days DO try to help the students not get ripped off. Many are doing things like specifically allowing the use of an older edition, etc so that students can find it in the used market. Some schools have also taken to specifically listing the books required for a course online in a centralized place a month or so ahead of time, so that people can buy them someplace other than the campus book store more easily. Not all schools are engaged in ripoff practices.

Pretty cool guy.

The professors are also to blame. There is no reason that a new edition of a calc book needs to be used every year. You can't tell me that the concepts of calc are so dynamic that they require yearly updates.

Beats paying for my school's IT 103 (basic computing) book for $250. It is cheaper to take the class at the local community college than buy the book.

@kylere:

Don't professors share some of the blame? I've had professors who were very conscience of the costs of books and who sought out cheap titles.

I've had other professors who listed multiple textbooks as requirements (some of the textbooks later turned out to be optional and were never used)

Towards the end of my stint in college, I didn't buy most books until a couple weeks into the semester, simply telling my instructors I bought them on Amazon or something and the free super saver shipping was just taking forever, if they even asked. When I figureed out if I needed the book or not, I would simply buy it from the school store or pay a bit extra for speedy shipping on Amazon to get it cheaper.

I did this for one simple reason: I got tired of instructors who made me buy an $80 text book for their class, only to include EVERYTHING I need in their class notes, making the book simply a professionally printed version of their class content.

I got through a film and literature course this way. 10 required reading books, and I didn't buy a single one because I got everything I needed from her lecture and class notes. Why waste hours of my time each night reading a book I won't care about after the semester, when I can just pay attention for 2 hours 2 days a week and get everything?

Did the same thing with my biology class, opting to use Wikipedia and Google instead of the textbook. Saved myself $90 that way. The book store ended up buying back only 30 copies of the book at $20 each, and with over 150 students in Biology 101 classes that semester alone, well, let's just say I felt great not having to voraciously sell my book back.

Risky, but if you're confident in your Internet searching skills and your ability to be resourceful in a pinch, you can save a lot of money doing it this way.

And naturally, it could not be re-sold at the end of the semester. Even worse, since he had rushed to get it finished before class started, it was full of grammar and spelling errors - which may have been by design, so he could use us as free editors too.

So wrong. But I would have killed to have online options like Half and the huge number of other resellers back in college, instead of having to settle for whatever the on-campus store deigned to offer.

There are some professors I know who have written their own textbooks and use a self-publisher of some kind to get them to the students. That's worked out well for all involved, because the dept. heads considered that "good enough" to count as publishing and the students got a textbook for a fraction of the usual cost. (Can't sell them back at the end of the semester, but if you've only paid $10 or so for it in the first place, who cares?)