You know textbooks are out of control when...

[Tiamat]

I have never exceeded 1 month's rent on books. Worst semester in undergrad was 720$ in books. 1 months rent at the time was 1200$ :/

 

[EagleKeeper]

:wine:

Books used to be more than the tuition costs for the semester

 

[VenomXTF]

I'm graduating in a couple days, CS major / Math minor, and have purchased 2 textbooks total. They are a waste of money.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: Shawn
half.com

Thankfully that makes it not as bad, the books are still overpriced but much better than a local book store.

I thought I complained a lot about book prices... my FOB friends from India complain even more. They show me their math books that cost the equivalent of $2 and how it's better than what we have. It'll be half the size in dimensions and pages, and it'll still have all the information. I haven't understood why math books always toss in stupid projects, lab experiments, etc. other than for increasing the page count. It's almost like they have the Google version of our textbooks, just the raw info and practice problems.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: darthsidious
That's why I love advanced classes/grad classes. Most often, the prof is unhappy with the coverage in most books, and writes up his own course notes, which you can buy for a fraction of the price (between $10-20).

Seriously though, I'm taking a digital communications class, and Bob Gallagar(A legend in the field) has written a set of course notes that might possibly be the best textbook I'v ever read. And they cost me <$20.

On the other hand, I remember paying $167 for a copy of E.M Purcell, an Horrible E&M textbook as a freshman.

To the OP: have you tried looking for used books/international paperback editions. They can be substantially cheaper.

Hey Edward Purcell was awesome compared to the crap written by Giancoli in many many ways.

 

[her209]

Its a fvcking monopoly...

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: screw3d

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: FusionKnight
I'm a comp sci major and I stopped buying textbooks after my second year. Obviously I can't speak for other degrees, but with the wealth of comp sci information on the intarweb, I find it difficult to justify purchasing a $170 textbook that I will likely never use.

FK

Same here, I don't think I've bought any textbooks in at least a year, probably two (CS major also). I realized after my first few semesters that all the textbooks that I spent ridiculous amounts of money on, never even got opened 99% of the time. I'm not going to piss away money like that anymore...

QF MF T!

I wised up in sophomore year after realizing that half the books I bought were either outdated, horribly written, or better explained in wikipedia (not kidding); even if it's good, I never read it anyway

The only book i ever bought after that was for an OS class.. with crazy dinosaurs on the cover :/ that class pwned hard

I just graduated this semester

hah i had that book too. took that class 4 years ago! the class and exams werent too bad...but the programming assignments pwn3d my ass big time

 

[waggy]

i agree its disgusting. they change text books every year with very minor changes and force the students to pay another $100.

My wife took a math class one year and had to buy a new book. they had gotten a "updated" book. 2 years later a friend of hes was takeing that same class. they said they had to buy a new book because the one my wife baught was outdated. WTF! its a MATH BOOK. we looked and the pages were nearly the same. small diffrences like they added some pictures and color graphics.

also when you go to sale it. they give you $20 on a $100 book and put it back in the book store for $95 or so.

college text books are a huge scam.

 

[kmrivers]

Um. For a forum on the internet, you would think some of you would know how to bargain. Half.com, amazon.com, even eBay has books.

The semester that is ending tomorrow for me (YES!), my books were $160. I had 7 classes. My books would have been $500+ if i didn't shop on the net.

Get your book list early and buy them early.

 

[VenomXTF]

Originally posted by: Aharami

Originally posted by: screw3d

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: FusionKnight
I'm a comp sci major and I stopped buying textbooks after my second year. Obviously I can't speak for other degrees, but with the wealth of comp sci information on the intarweb, I find it difficult to justify purchasing a $170 textbook that I will likely never use.

FK

Same here, I don't think I've bought any textbooks in at least a year, probably two (CS major also). I realized after my first few semesters that all the textbooks that I spent ridiculous amounts of money on, never even got opened 99% of the time. I'm not going to piss away money like that anymore...

QF MF T!

I wised up in sophomore year after realizing that half the books I bought were either outdated, horribly written, or better explained in wikipedia (not kidding); even if it's good, I never read it anyway

The only book i ever bought after that was for an OS class.. with crazy dinosaurs on the cover :/ that class pwned hard

I just graduated this semester

hah i had that book too. took that class 4 years ago! the class and exams werent too bad...but the programming assignments pwn3d my ass big time

That was one of the books I also bought. Didn't think it was that bad, actually really enjoyed the multi-threaded programs, but then again I had the highest grade in the class.

 

[Winchester]

I borrowed the book from the university library or local libraries and it didnt cost anything, other than a few late fees. As a graduate student we could check books out for 3 months which was pretty much all I needed. If I couldnt get it there I would go to half.com.

What drove me nuts is the "bookstore" on campus was privately owned so the university could claim they didnt have control of the costs. They would get a new edition of the books every semester so you could not sell them back or sell them to other students. All that changed from many books were a few pictures and maybe 2-3 pages in a 400 page book.

 

[SWScorch]

That's why I stopped buying books after a few semesters. I learned that they were ridiculously expensive and we almost never used them. A few semesters ago, I only bought one book because it was absolutely required. It wad for Spanish, which I just decided to take for fun, and it was $160.

 

[Sphexi]

I took a sociology course where the proffessor wrote his own material. He basically spent a few months every few years living down in the islands, just bumming around and writing, and then comes back up to the states and publishes. His books aren't anything more than stories and workpages, all paperback, yet they're still like $30-$50 each.

College books = total ripoff.

 

[Amused]

There are a couple reasons for high textbook prices.

1. The books have a finite lifespan. They are only marketable for a few short years. The authors and publishers have a very short time in which to make their production costs back and earn a profit. (a single text book can cost from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to sign, develop, review, produce, market, and distribute.

2. The used book market. This further and severely erodes the income of publishers and authors, causing the prices of new books to go even higher. This in turn causes the prices of used books to increase as well, which is nearly pure profit for book stores.

These two issues are intertwined reasons of why text books are priced so high.

In fact, stop the used textbook market (campus/off campus bookstore's main income) and textbook prices will drop by more than half.

 

[chowmein]

www.efollet.com and amazon.cm ftw

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: Amused
There are a couple reasons for high textbook prices.

1. The books have a finite lifespan. They are only marketable for a few short years. The authors and publishers have a very short time in which to make their production costs back and earn a profit.

2. The used book market. This further erodes the income of publishers and authors, causing the prices of new books to go even higher. This in turn causes the prices of used books to increase as well, which is nearly pure profit for book stores.

These two issues are intertwined reasons of why text books are priced so high.

In fact, stop the used textbook market (campus/off campus bookstore's main income) and textbook prices will drop by more than half.

The only reason textbook prices are so high is because the damn publishers know students have to buy the book no matter what and they can charge whatever they want.

They also know that students resell most of the books back so they rush new edition after edition. In one extreme case I've seen two new editions of data structure book to come out in 2-2.5 years. In my database class we used a 7th, that's SEVENTH edition of the book. WTF? 7 editions?

As soon as the new edition comes out your old edition is pretty much worthless, going for $5-20 on ebay/half.com and college bookstore isn't going to buy it back either. And even if your edition is still current, my bookstore only gives about 1/3 of what they sell it for. Pure profit FTW.

This craze to put out new editions does nothing for book quality either. Most of the college textbooks suck. I've had some decently written, but those were very few exceptions.

You could save some money by going half.com/ebay, but as I have found the savings on 300-400 level books are not that substantial as there isn't much demand on those to bring the price down. So for my current semester I had to buy most of my books used from college bookstore.

BTW we also used the book with dinosaur for OS class. Our professor rushed through the entire book in one semester, and I do mean entire book, we had to read 800-900 pages (or whatever). The book itself wasn't that hard, aside from the sheer reading volume, but assignments were. I'm taking the same professor this semester for networking systems and he made us read entire book again, 800 pages. Damn, why do I never get any good teachers?


Anyway, just my 0.02 rant...

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: chowmein
www.efollet.com and amazon.cm ftw

efollet sucks cuz they're our official textbook handler.

 

[BrownTown]

Yeah, im sorta suprised how many people on a technical forum like this are actually still buying books from the bookstore. Personally i either buy used books, international edition books, or no book at all. I still probably spent 150$ on books this semester, but seeing at my circuits book alone cost that much in the bookstore I probably saved 200 $ by buying books from the internets.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: fleshconsumed

Originally posted by: Amused
There are a couple reasons for high textbook prices.

1. The books have a finite lifespan. They are only marketable for a few short years. The authors and publishers have a very short time in which to make their production costs back and earn a profit.

2. The used book market. This further erodes the income of publishers and authors, causing the prices of new books to go even higher. This in turn causes the prices of used books to increase as well, which is nearly pure profit for book stores.

These two issues are intertwined reasons of why text books are priced so high.

In fact, stop the used textbook market (campus/off campus bookstore's main income) and textbook prices will drop by more than half.

The only reason textbook prices are so high is because the damn publishers know students have to buy the book no matter what and they can charge whatever they want.

They also know that students resell most of the books back so they rush new edition after edition. In one extreme case I've seen two new editions of data structure book to come out in 2-2.5 years. In my database class we used a 7th, that's SEVENTH edition of the book. WTF? 7 editions?

As soon as the new edition comes out your old edition is pretty much worthless, going for $5-20 on ebay/half.com and college bookstore isn't going to buy it back either. And even if your edition is still current, my bookstore only gives about 1/3 of what they sell it for. Pure profit FTW.

This craze to put out new editions does nothing for book quality either. Most of the college textbooks suck. I've had some decently written, but those were very few exceptions.

Anyway, just my 0.02 rant...

That's about all your rant is worth, too. Rather than look at the economics surrounding the issue, you simplistically blame "greed."

About the only profit mongers in this game are the used bookstores themselves. The publishers and authors are pricing the new books so high and releasing new editions faster than needed to combat the used book market. The used book market is the very reason prices are so high. The only people making money off of used books are the bookstores. The publishers and authors never see a Penny of that money.

Do you think authors and publishers do not deserve to make back production costs and a profit on their work? Because of the used book market, they cannot possibly do anything other than charge the prices they do and release revised editions in an attempt to make the used books obsolete. They are not a charity.

 

[Pacemaker]

When I took Biology 101 I went and bought the book (it was around 80 bucks). After the first Month I realized the class was actually moving slower than my high school bio class and was much easier so I never took the book out of the shrink wrap. When I took it back at the end of the year they gave me 20 bucks for it.... the same price they were giving people who had ratty torn up copies. I opened the shrink wrap before I handed it to them and said, "if you are going to give me a used price for a book still in the shrink wrap your aren't going to sell it as new."

That really pissed me off.

 

[Dedpuhl]

I bought most of my books b/c I knew I'd need them throughout my career (Engineering).

The scam is when a university charges $100 more than Amazon.com or any other vendor. Campus bookstores suck.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: Amused
That's about all your rant is worth, too. Rather than look at the economics surrounding the issue, you simplistically blame "greed."

About the only profit mongers in this game are the used bookstores themselves. The publishers and authors are pricing the new books so high and releasing new editions faster than needed to combat the used book market. The used book market is the very reason prices are so high.

Do you think authors and publishers do not deserve to make back production costs and a profit on their work? Because of the used book market, they cannot possibly do anything other than charge the prices they do and release revised editions in an attempt to make the used books obsolete. They are not a charity.

Well, as you admitted yourself greed (or if you want a softer sounding word profits) is driving it. RIAA also feels that they deserve profits, but how many people say they are just greedy? Textbook industry is the same, they prey on a captive market with full monopoly (there are only a few publishers for college textbooks) and little to no alternative.

Plenty of book authors sell books (at least in cs/it category) for less than college books, $55 being the typical price, and for a narrower/smaller audience (seriously how many people are going to buy "C# advanced"?), and yet they don't feel the need to push out a new edition every year or two. They are making money of off it, why can't textbook authors/publishers do the same? The answer is yes, they make profit on them and a lot of it.

As for whether they deserve the money or not. In most of the cases actually no they don't. Most of the textbooks I've used were hastily written to make a quick buck, in most of the cases those books are pretty much worthless and certainly don't justify asking price. Pretty much the only reason I'm buying books is in case professor will assign problems from it.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: fleshconsumed

Originally posted by: Amused
There are a couple reasons for high textbook prices.

1. The books have a finite lifespan. They are only marketable for a few short years. The authors and publishers have a very short time in which to make their production costs back and earn a profit.

2. The used book market. This further erodes the income of publishers and authors, causing the prices of new books to go even higher. This in turn causes the prices of used books to increase as well, which is nearly pure profit for book stores.

These two issues are intertwined reasons of why text books are priced so high.

In fact, stop the used textbook market (campus/off campus bookstore's main income) and textbook prices will drop by more than half.

The only reason textbook prices are so high is because the damn publishers know students have to buy the book no matter what and they can charge whatever they want.

They also know that students resell most of the books back so they rush new edition after edition. In one extreme case I've seen two new editions of data structure book to come out in 2-2.5 years. In my database class we used a 7th, that's SEVENTH edition of the book. WTF? 7 editions?

As soon as the new edition comes out your old edition is pretty much worthless, going for $5-20 on ebay/half.com and college bookstore isn't going to buy it back either. And even if your edition is still current, my bookstore only gives about 1/3 of what they sell it for. Pure profit FTW.

This craze to put out new editions does nothing for book quality either. Most of the college textbooks suck. I've had some decently written, but those were very few exceptions.

Anyway, just my 0.02 rant...

That's about all your rant is worth, too. Rather than look at the economics surrounding the issue, you simplistically blame "greed."

About the only profit mongers in this game are the used bookstores themselves. The publishers and authors are pricing the new books so high and releasing new editions faster than needed to combat the used book market. The used book market is the very reason prices are so high. The only people making money off of used books are the bookstores. The publishers and authors never see a Penny of that money.

Do you think authors and publishers do not deserve to make back production costs and a profit on their work? Because of the used book market, they cannot possibly do anything other than charge the prices they do and release revised editions in an attempt to make the used books obsolete. They are not a charity.

You are missing the point here. Publishers and authors make their money on the FIRST SALE. It is well established by law. Publishers do not need to release a new edition every year or two, they are just gouging the market for all it is worth (and I do say gouging, since many publishers have agreements in place where the old editions are sold back to them by the bookstore and destroyed).

 

[bobdelt]

By used books! Or previous editions, its all the same info. I never spend more than 150 per semester for all my books.

 

[bobdelt]

Originally posted by: Linflas
The only thing that annoyed me with textbooks in college is when the prof would have a required text be one he/she had written. The conflict of interest is so obvious a 6 year old could see it yet it goes on.

Conflict of interest? You are taking his class. You are listing to him speak. You are learning what he wants you to learn regardless of what book you buy. He can teach whatever he wants. There is no conflict of interest, as he can brainwash you without you buying his book already. And as he is brainwashing you, of course he'll think hi book is the best.

What would be the point of buying a different book the professor didnt like?