yg17 said:
Also, just to add to what I said, if you're lucky, your school bookstore will buy back books bought from other places. That book I got for 6 bucks? Sold it back at the end of the semester for $50
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College = Expensive = "I'm a college student" cliche
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Also, just to add to what I said, if you're lucky, your school bookstore will buy back books bought from other places. That book I got for 6 bucks? Sold it back at the end of the semester for $50
Wow, I leave for a little bit to go to a BBQ and come back to 25+ posts. Anyways, yeah, textbooks = expensive, at least I have the internet.
Two other options no one talks about -
1)Library - most schools require there be at least one up to date copy of the course textbook in the library, borrow it before the term starts and photocopy the heck out of it. As a student for personal use you are allowed to copy parts of it. As well when you get to upper division and graduate studies most schools change your library terms, as well if you work at the school. I used to work 90 hours a term and be able to take out books for the whole term, no recalls. I havent bought a course textbook in 5 years...
2)E-books - some publishers, Gale Scientific especially, release ebook versions of their textbooks , the price is one third of the paper copy exactly the same page numbers and you can always print it off for $10, if that is too expensive still make your own e-book by the library and scanner method. Or download the e-book for 'free' from educational torrent sites...
1)Library - most schools require there be at least one up to date copy of the course textbook in the library, borrow it before the term starts and photocopy the heck out of it. As a student for personal use you are allowed to copy parts of it. As well when you get to upper division and graduate studies most schools change your library terms, as well if you work at the school. I used to work 90 hours a term and be able to take out books for the whole term, no recalls. I havent bought a course textbook in 5 years...
2)E-books - some publishers, Gale Scientific especially, release ebook versions of their textbooks , the price is one third of the paper copy exactly the same page numbers and you can always print it off for $10, if that is too expensive still make your own e-book by the library and scanner method. Or download the e-book for 'free' from educational torrent sites...
Ahh I remember the good old days of price gouging. I once had to buy a basic accounting textbook for $125, new, as they had just "updated" to a newer version. At the end of the semester, the bookstore said they weren't buying it back as the text had been "updated" yet again.
I can see this reasonably occurring with science textbooks, as new discoveries are being made, theories are being updated, etc., and having an up-to-date text is necessary. Basic maths, literature, and the like haven't changed much over the years, so in those cases it's not much other than a money press for the publishers and the bookstores.
YMMV, but I'll point out a theory upon which I lighted when I was an undergrad. At my school, your cost of books was somehow directly proportional to your major, or more precisely, how much money you were expected to make when you graduated. Engineering and business students paid the most (both per book and overall), and people in my field (BA English/Creative Writing) and the like paid the least. During my junior and senior years, I don't think I ever paid more than $200 total or so for books, and most of them I ended up keeping.
As for selling your books back when the term is over, just find out what price the bookstore is selling used copies, and advertise around campus yourself at $10 under that.
I can see this reasonably occurring with science textbooks, as new discoveries are being made, theories are being updated, etc., and having an up-to-date text is necessary. Basic maths, literature, and the like haven't changed much over the years, so in those cases it's not much other than a money press for the publishers and the bookstores.
YMMV, but I'll point out a theory upon which I lighted when I was an undergrad. At my school, your cost of books was somehow directly proportional to your major, or more precisely, how much money you were expected to make when you graduated. Engineering and business students paid the most (both per book and overall), and people in my field (BA English/Creative Writing) and the like paid the least. During my junior and senior years, I don't think I ever paid more than $200 total or so for books, and most of them I ended up keeping.
As for selling your books back when the term is over, just find out what price the bookstore is selling used copies, and advertise around campus yourself at $10 under that.
i usually try and buy my books online at like half.com, soooo much better there is absolutely no reason to buy from your bookstore unless you are that lazy. i dont buy any of the books for my history classes b/c i can get away with using wikipedia.com instead. and those were upper division history courses, haha and i havent gotten anything less than an A so i dont think ill be buying any of those anytime soon
if you think college is expensive, try law school. Tuition alone is as much as tuition + room and board + books + living expenses at college. And of course, if you're in law school, you've (probably) just finished college...
slooksterPSV said:
I work in a bookstore that sells textbooks. $332.67 is pretty average, to tell the truth. Be glad you didn't pay $817, this year's record so far... some kid is in for a nasty surprise!
cslewis said:I work in a bookstore that sells textbooks. $332.67 is pretty average, to tell the truth. Be glad you didn't pay $817, this year's record so far... some kid is in for a nasty surprise!
just got back from my first class...the required texts, all of them, are around $475 USD...
kalisphoenix said:
43 books? In one semester - as in roughly 12 weeks of school?
How many classes are you taking?! I have 5 classes and have about 7-8 books I need to buy.
Sharing books with roommate/friend saves a lot of money. Also, a lot of classes don't really even need the "required" textbook. I think I opened my Psychology book less than a dozen times last year; Found most of my information online and I was set with the downloadable lecture slides.
Nonetheless, there are still classes where I still have to shell out for expensive books, and that makes me angry. Makes me want to walk right out of the bookstore with my new expensive stack of paper and drop it on some kid's back.
Nonetheless, there are still classes where I still have to shell out for expensive books, and that makes me angry. Makes me want to walk right out of the bookstore with my new expensive stack of paper and drop it on some kid's back.
wow... I always heard that studying in the US or UK was expensive but jees!! My most expensive text book was R1400, back then it translated back to $200, but we used if for 2 years. Would guess that ALL my text books for all 4 years of study ran about $1000, and I only got the new stuff with all the electronic media extras and everything!
extraextra said:43 books? In one semester - as in roughly 12 weeks of school?
literature classes are notorious for that kind of thing...I had a Russian lit class that used about...jeez, 7 or 8. History classes can be that way too. I had a French history class that had 5 required books, and another European history class with 7 required.
The kicker is large book stores like Follett's (Which have several stores at Purdue and run the Penn State Bookstore, not to mention many smaller colleges) will tell you that this book is no longer in use at your school so we'll buy it back for $2. Then then send it to a school where it is being used and charge $50 for it....again.
extraextra said:43 books? In one semester - as in roughly 12 weeks of school?
16 weeks per semester, at least here.
I'm taking 23 credit hours. I need to graduate in the Spring so that I can enter Grad School and graduate at the same time as my wife (ie, just before we move to Oregon). I should only be taking about 11 hours this Spring, but since I just transferred here and my core requirements are satisfied by transfer credits, I wasn't able to get admitted directly to the College of Arts & Sciences.... meaning that they haven't officially decided which classes I need to take in order to graduate. So I might have a light semester this Spring, or I might be taking 23 hours again. Either way, there's no margin of error available to me. Either I graduate this Spring or I don't have enough time to get my M.A.
My lecturer actually asked questions in our end of year exam which you could get the answers right if you copied the answers from his book (£50). He even said the answers were in his book, its almost like blackmail.
I tend to use the library rather than buy books though.
I tend to use the library rather than buy books though.
That's very interesting to hear how much people have to pay to obtain these 'required' texts, it's almost like legalised extortion.
Saying that, at University here in Belfast, I've bought 2 textbooks in total, both in the first year during the first semester, where it seemed like the books would be 'required' and used regularly. In actual fact, all my lecturers have specifically stated that we didn't *need* to buy textbooks unless we really wanted to, and while they did provide a list of recommended texts, they did stress the fact that we didn't need to buy them, the Library had copies should we want to consult them. They backed this up by providing really good sets of notes which prepared us for the exams perfectly. They also seemed quite aware of the fact textbooks cost a fortune, so they were doing it to save US money!
In Electrical & Electronic Engineering, the only textbook I'm glad I purchased is 'Engineering Mathematics' by Stroud.
Saying that, at University here in Belfast, I've bought 2 textbooks in total, both in the first year during the first semester, where it seemed like the books would be 'required' and used regularly. In actual fact, all my lecturers have specifically stated that we didn't *need* to buy textbooks unless we really wanted to, and while they did provide a list of recommended texts, they did stress the fact that we didn't need to buy them, the Library had copies should we want to consult them. They backed this up by providing really good sets of notes which prepared us for the exams perfectly. They also seemed quite aware of the fact textbooks cost a fortune, so they were doing it to save US money!
In Electrical & Electronic Engineering, the only textbook I'm glad I purchased is 'Engineering Mathematics' by Stroud.
dynamicv said:
most of these lecturers/researchers produce very narrowly focused textbooks/guides/papers and a limited run usually has a minimum cost of over $5000 dollars usd...so it's rarely about making money
if the author is lucky, he/she will break even
but to answer the original poster, college textbooks are very expensive and that sucks...there was a time when public universities, at least in california, supplied some or all of them for free but that was back when the tuition was free or nearly free and unless something is done on individual state government levels, nothing is going to change
in california, tax cuts for the rich may be the issue which may take down governor arnold in a time when many services, including education, are not bouncing back the way he promised they would or as soon as he promised he would
in a movie, when arnold says something, he sticks to it, but as governor, he has found something bigger than him
When I was an undergrad I was lucky to pay less than $300 per semester for books...so the OP is pretty typical.
What made it worse for me was that I was paying my tuition/expenses out of pocket (I was working full time). So I have no debt but I aged 20 years from stress.
What made it worse for me was that I was paying my tuition/expenses out of pocket (I was working full time). So I have no debt but I aged 20 years from stress.
Lord Blackadder said:When I was an undergrad I was lucky to pay less than $300 per semester for books...so the OP is pretty typical.
What made it worse for me was that I was paying my tuition/expenses out of pocket (I was working full time). So I have no debt but I aged 20 years from stress.
kudos to you
i have seen very few people manage this, even for a two year associate's degree or 18 month professional certification program
working part time is the more sane option, or a student loan, and many have family responsibilities, mortgage, rent, kids, etc and it's the only possible way through school
i did know this one man who made a so-so salary (govt employee) in a very expensive region, had seven kids, and paid his way through mba school at $1500 dollars per class, not counting books...totally insane...and once i saw him driving and while he was making the turn into the school he had to hold the door shut...i asked him why he didn't fix the door, then he told me about his seven kids, expenses, and the cost of school