Textbook Prices too high? Rent-A-Textbook now offered..

[Analog]

The average student now spends almost $1,000 a year on books required for courses, with some books retailing for more than $200 apiece. The result is some students going deeper in debt, and others try to survive classes without textbooks.

http://detnews.com/article/20100722...high-price-of-college-textbooks#ixzz0uOqGF5Nj
​

College textbook affordability regulations, which went into effect July 1, force textbook publishers to provide retail prices to faculty to whom they are making sales calls. The regulations also require publishers to "unbundle" textbooks, allowing students to not purchase supplementary workbooks and CDs previously packaged with the books that could drive up the cost 10 percent to 50 percent.


Universities also are now required to list the titles, prices and International Standard Book Number (ISBN) on their course offerings.

​

The rules may already be having an impact. The Student Book Store in East Lansing will begin renting textbooks this fall, in an attempt to stay competitive with online offerings. "It's a natural part of competition," said Mike Wylie, assistant manager at the store.



The Barnes & Noble bookstore at Wayne State also is beginning a rental program this fall that will cost students about half of the purchase price.
MSU implemented the requirements in February. "I think it's going to give students more options," said Scott Owczarek, MSU associate registrar.
The University of Michigan estimates that the average Ann Arbor student spends $1,048 a year on textbooks. The school has a student-to-student used book system called UBook.



Some university professors are turning to free online textbooks, available on sites such as www.flatworldknowledge.com. "They're standing the publishing world on its ear," said White. "I have 98 students in three classes, and they'll save about $11,000 by using open-source texts."

​

 

[Zebo]

Cool service but I don't know how they will stay ahead of frequent edition changes.

For example. Like how much do you change calculus? Not much right... Seems like it changes every year with new edition rearranged and different HW problems so you can't buy it used. $110 suckas. Well at least it's good for 3 classes as I remember it. Every book was like that when I was in school, 1-2 years circulation tops so you almost always had to buy new.

 

[1prophet]

Textbook Publisher Kickback Scam

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/26/eveningnews/main585832.shtml

 

[Wheezer]

I used Chegg.com my last two quarters of school. Saved some money as long as you are careful with the books.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Cool service but I don't know how they will stay ahead of frequent edition changes.

For example. Like how much do you change calculus? Not much right... Seems like it changes every year with new edition rearranged and different HW problems so you can't buy it used. $110 suckas. Well at least it's good for 3 classes as I remember it. Every book was like that when I was in school, 1-2 years circulation tops so you almost always had to buy new.

High rental costs probably. Have to break even and profit off the textbook before it becomes obsolete.

What I did was buy the less than $10 older edition and, if I could, check out the reserve copy of the newest edition at the library or borrow a friend's to make photocopies of the homework problems. Another idea is to get a few people together to pay for one book to make photocopies of homework problems.

 

[Jeff7]

Cool service but I don't know how they will stay ahead of frequent edition changes.

For example. Like how much do you change calculus? Not much right... Seems like it changes every year with new edition rearranged and different HW problems so you can't buy it used. $110 suckas. Well at least it's good for 3 classes as I remember it. Every book was like that when I was in school, 1-2 years circulation tops so you almost always had to buy new.

There are at least some that stay the same, at least for awhile. My Thermodynamics/Heat Transfer textbook was in the first edition since 1996. However, the second edition came out in 2007.
Some of my other books seemed to put out a new revision every 2 years.

 

[dfuze]

I've always hated having to buy a book and end up using only 1/2, even worse were those bundles that you never used

 

[Exterous]

I am glad they are doing something about this. Not only are the purchase prices absurd, the buy back prices are a joke

We actually had decent luck getting a few for my wife off the internet at much reduced prices. One book came from the UK and was still 75% cheaper than buying at the University

 

[RapidSnail]

international editions

 

[rudder]

I wish I had the torrent-a-textbook service when I was in school.

 

[Firsttime]

Textbooks disgust me. I hate them, there is no way these books cost these companies anywhere near $200 to produce, they could switch the whole operation over to e-readers and sell PDF's for a fraction of the cost, but they don't.

On my list of scum it goes:
the Devil>Child Rapers>Textbook Companies

 

[Hacp]

High rental costs probably. Have to break even and profit off the textbook before it becomes obsolete.

What I did was buy the less than $10 older edition and, if I could, check out the reserve copy of the newest edition at the library or borrow a friend's to make photocopies of the homework problems. Another idea is to get a few people together to pay for one book to make photocopies of homework problems.

Haha, thats exactly what I do. Sometimes, the guys are too fucking lazy to change the problems and I'm sitting there with my 15 dollar book doing the same exact examples as other people with their brand new 200 dollar hardcover or 100 dollar softcover.

 

[MotF Bane]

That's not going to do anything for the textbooks with a new edition every couple of years, and some of the professors really just don't give a fuck about how much the book costs.

 

[Eli]

Good. My fiancee just had to shell out over $400 for books. That shit hurts.

 

[blinblue]

The last two years of college I wised up and I believe my net loss on textbooks was probably about $100. Between inter-library loans (seriously try this first, I got about 50% of my textbooks from libraries), buying used and selling it online or in person (sometimes even making a profit), buying a previous edition when I know it won't make any significant difference, and sharing a book with a friend. Oh, and check with the professor to see if the book is really needed.
One should really exhaust all those options before even considering buying a new textbook. Unless you are doing some really specialized coursework, there really is no excuse for spending hundreds (or thousands!) on textbooks a year

 

[Firsttime]

That's not going to do anything for the textbooks with a new edition every couple of years, and some of the professors really just don't give a fuck about how much the book costs.

I've met a surprising large number of professors who hold to the view: "Well you're spending 20k a year on school, what's another grand on textbooks?"

0_o Ok, you're right, my money just grows on trees. It's the worst when an expensive textbook is required for the class but then rarely utilized. Makes me want to puke.

 

[Phoenix86]

I love how public K-12 schools replace their test books, what every decade or so. But when you get to college it's every 6-12 months. Both institutions are run by the state governments.

The difference? State pays for K-12 books directly. The excuse? Lack of public funding, but when you have to pay directly...?

Hello, of course it's a fucking scam.

 

[Bibble]

The last two years of college I wised up and I believe my net loss on textbooks was probably about $100. Between inter-library loans (seriously try this first, I got about 50% of my textbooks from libraries), buying used and selling it online or in person (sometimes even making a profit), buying a previous edition when I know it won't make any significant difference, and sharing a book with a friend. Oh, and check with the professor to see if the book is really needed.
One should really exhaust all those options before even considering buying a new textbook. Unless you are doing some really specialized coursework, there really is no excuse for spending hundreds (or thousands!) on textbooks a year

I could not agree more with this method.

During my sophomore year I started to buy books on Half.com, where they were even cheaper than used books at my university's bookstore. I would then sell them back to the bookstore at the end of the semester. The buyback prices were a pittance compared to what the bookstore sold them for originally, but weren't so bad compared to what I paid for them online. Between this and borrowing books from friends I probably saved 30-40% each semester.

 

[SLCentral]

I used Chegg.com, a textbook rental site, for both semesters last year (I'm a rising Jr. in college). Spent about 25-30% of what I would have spent if I had bought them. Everything was very smooth, came with a label to send them back at the end of the semester. They had every book that I needed, and two of the books came directly from Amazon brand new, as Chegg didn't have them in their inventory yet I guess. About half the books were new editions, so clearly they're staying up to date.

I'll be using the service for the next two years too. I don't see any reason to waste my time buying new books and selling them back when I can just do this. Seriously can't recommend it enough.

 

[Jeff7]

That's not going to do anything for the textbooks with a new edition every couple of years, and some of the professors really just don't give a fuck about how much the book costs.

Some of my professors disliked the book revisions as much as the students - they would have very customized lesson plans, which used specific problems from the books. Each new version of the book meant that they had to update all of their handouts and assignments to make sure that all the page numbers and See Figure Whatever notes matched up, and in some cases change which problems were used, as sometimes old examples would get reworked with different numbers.