A A A A Search :
Toledo Talk   (musing about Lake Erie West and beyond)
From jshriver's workspace   

College Textbooks

So I enrolled at Owens. I prefer UT but Owens is only ~$450 for one class as opposed to $1500 at UT.

So I saved up, went in the week before to pay my tuition in full. A couple days later, once I knew what books I could get went to buy them.

1 class (Weather and Climate, I'm a Skywarn person) $167.

$167 US Dollars for 1.5 books (1 Textbook about 1/2 inch think, and a workbook).

Sadly wish I had looked online as the Textbook used was around $60 and the workbook new $50 on Amazon so might have saved a few bucks.

Still yet. $167 for a single class. I try not to be a shrew but YIKES. I could go to my favorite used book store (A Novel Idea) and probably clone my library for that same amount.

Know I'm trying to finish my degree, but by the time my kids get to college 20+ years from now, I'll probably end up spending well over 200k for a 4year education. Heaven forbid they take 5 years like most people I know.

random bummer over
-Josh

created by jshriver on Aug 20, 2008 at 10:21:22 pm     Comments: 12

print      source      versions

Comments ... #

A great place to look for books is half.com. My classes are starting next week, and I'm looking at a good 50% off my materials if I buy through there.

It's a bit risky, as you're buying straight from other customers, but I'd rather give 50% of the original price to a student than give 75% of the original price back to the bookstore (who probably bought it back at 40%).

posted by TheTalentedMrC on Aug 20, 2008 at 10:50:28 pm     #



Oh it's crazy how much class room books are. And they seem to be used only a few semesters and then a new version comes out. It's just crazy.

I did however find some great deals on Ebay for a couple of my classes. One book I paid 8 bucks and the other 23. I made out like a bandit.

posted by ToledoLatina on Aug 20, 2008 at 11:13:13 pm     #



yes, books are expensive, but consider the real value of these books. These books contain information that unlock doors in our lives and give us knowledge, skills and critical thinking abilities that would otherwise be unattainable. They prepare us for life. They land us a job. What is a Danielle Steel novel good for?

All things considered they are a hell of a bargain for a dedicated reader. Nose to the grindstone, my friend.

posted by thetoledowire_com on Aug 20, 2008 at 11:40:00 pm     #



There's this thing called a lie berry (or the neighborhood or downtown free DVD rental place). They've got books for (get this) free. You can get your learn on for free without the need for "class."

Education is expensive for a reason... it's pretentiously useless.

http://donklephant.com/2008/08/16/higher-education-dangerously-close-to-becoming-irrelevant/

�Students are inside a classroom (tethered to a place), using textbooks and handouts (printed materials), they must pay tuition and register to attend (the experience is closed), talking during class or working with others outside of class is generally discouraged (each student is isolated though surrounded by peers), each student receives exactly the same instruction as each of her classmates (the information presented is generic), and students are students and do not participate in the teaching process (they are consumers).�

In contrast, students experience a completely different world when they are outside the classroom:

�From her dorm room / the student center / a coffee shop / the bus, a student connects to the Internet using her laptop (she is mobile), uses Google to find a relevant web page (a digital resource which is open for her to access). While carrying out her search, she chats with one friend on the phone and another using instant messaging to see if they can assist in her search (she is connected to other people), she follows links from one website to another exploring related information (the content is connected to other content), she quickly finds exactly the information she needs, ignoring irrelevant material (she gets what is important to her personally), and she shares her find with her friends by phone and IM (she participates in the teaching process).�

posted by charlatan on Aug 21, 2008 at 06:40:45 am     #



College book buying and selling is definitely a targeted market, that after years of pseudo-monopoly still has not responded to competition found via the Internet and other forms of choice.

Professors, in-league with the publishers, require a new "edition" every semester thus indicating to a student that the used book is worthless. This is non-sense. Amazon and other Internet sources have former students selling their books at much better prices than the "used price" at the college book store.

I don't deny the book seller his business, just be a smart consumer. When a professor tells you that you must have a certain edition, look at the older edition, make sure the subject matter is the same - and adjust the homework/reading assignments to your page numbers.

TAHL

posted by TheAssHoleLawyer on Aug 21, 2008 at 07:36:37 am     #



I took that weather and climate class at UT, online. It was an awsome class!

posted by tm2 on Aug 21, 2008 at 10:30:54 am     #



Text books are a racket. I have taken classes where they only quiz you on the lectures, yet you are still required to buy the book. I literally don’t think I have ever read an entire page out of any of them. I just got an A in Humanities and had the WRONG book for the first few weeks, so you do that math.

posted by Ryan on Aug 21, 2008 at 12:27:42 pm     #



A couple of comments about colege textbooks from someone who does this for a living:

1. Professors have no say in the pricing of textbooks. They assign the text that they believe best serves the course. I try whenever possible to use texts in my classes for which used copies are available, and I encourage my students to shop online for better deals.

2. As far as the "new edition" racket - that's the function of the publisher. If they can crank a new edition out every year, they make more money. In my field (history), there's not a lot of significant changes in most texts, and students sometimes go with older editions to save money. However, in some high-tech fields, the rate of new knowledge is so high that new editions might even be obsolete before they get to the bookstores.

3. A few professors publish their own textbooks, and this gets into a real ethical dilemma. I know one professor who writes a "new" edition of a biology textbook every semester, and gets a cheap wire-bound, paper-covered text published locally. You can only buy it at one bookstore, and the price for this Xerox-quality document is about $80. This is a borderline scam if you ask me, since production costs canot be more than a couple of bucks apiece for what is essentially 20-pound white paper copies of a 400-page document that differs very little each semester.

4. Check out RateMyProfessors.com before you buy your books, and see what former students said. If they say something like Ryan ("never needed the textbook"), then hold off and see for yourself.

5. Also, use sources like libraries and intra-library loan services like OhioLink to make use of free books.

posted by historymike on Aug 21, 2008 at 06:03:30 pm     #



Some good feedback mentioned above.

I'd also like to mention that many textbooks are available as eBooks, and the price to subscribe (generally for 180 days or more) is significantly less than buying a hard copy of the book.

Another bonus of the digital textbook is that it is searchable. :)

I've used Coursesmart.com and one other site (will have to dig through my old e-mails...can't think of the name off the top of my head!). Anyhow, you can search by ISBN number and author name at both sites.

posted by mom2 on Aug 21, 2008 at 07:19:10 pm     #



Wonderful comments, and I love ebooks and would prefer that over pulp due to the fact you can actually search a documents, now Ctrl-F in a book :)

Will check out that site mom2, and if you know of others you recommend I'd appreciate it (will also google).

historymike: great comments as well. It seems like it goes both ways. I had a similar but opposite experience once. The teacher wrote his own book, had the college publishing department make prints on demand for students who wanted the whole thing or he would at times just print out small 2-5 pages sections and had them out in class. Needless to say most people just bought the book. Think I only had to pay $20 for it. Wish more teachers were like that (or had a department that would allow it). He was a history teacher too btw.

posted by jshriver on Aug 21, 2008 at 10:19:34 pm     #



correction: search a document, and no instead of now. Me need to make my engrish gooder ;)

posted by jshriver on Aug 21, 2008 at 10:20:37 pm     #



Ohio Link is a good source to go through, its like using the library and all you do is check out the book you need and keep renewing it until you dont need it. Then just return it and you dont owe a dime.

posted by justphillips on Aug 22, 2008 at 05:53:25 pm     #