Scooter Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Just ordered a few textbooks off of amazon which saved quite a bit of money. It's ridiculous how much textbooks cost nowadays. In the last couple years, I have not paid less than $100 for a textbook. Size doesn't matter. It can be an inch thick or 4 inches thick, it's still around $110-130. In 10 years, textbook prices have doubled. I remember paying max of $65 for a textbook during my undergrad. Some of them haven't even changed besides being "revised." Revised meaning new cover picture, changing the page size so the numbering is different, fixing the spelling mistakes, and revising the price because it's a new edition. It's no wonder college students have to download music, they just can't afford anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jessej Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 ROFL....so very true! Ya know, it's all a scam depending on how you look at it. I'll take and use something practical anyday. In theory everything is good for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingman Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 My last year of school I paid more for text books than I did for tuition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPatterson Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 There used to be .03 cent stamp and penny postcards too. Welcome to the age of $20.00 per hour jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Moneypenny Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Yes, wages have increased but not as fast as the COST of everything else. kind of a sad state really. 6 yrs of college and i have a SHIT load of text books because i refused to give them back for 3-10$ a piece to be sold for 40 3 months later.... yes, it's a plot called screw the student. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diehli Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Amen... I resell my text books. I make up signs and put 'em outside the classrooms where the classes are held the following quarter. I don't make everything back, but I do undercut the school bookstore, which is a good thing. The thing that pisses me off is when they charge you $60+ for a frickin' photocopied book that's out of print... bastiges! I also hate the teachers that want you to read 10 pages from a $30 book... make a photocopy assclown, there's such a thing as "fair use." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 What's particularly stupid, is that there's no need for textbooks anymore. Our better profs do all their notes on the computer then put them up on the internet on a deal called "Blackboard". All you're doing with a book is buying $120 worth of problem sets, of which you'll only use 10% of. Expect to see the Mafia take over textbook sales in the near future. It will be the only way they can sell any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TriggerT Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 One of the great thinkgs about the University of Wisconsin schools was that alomost all of the books were paid for by the schools, kind of like when you are in high school. Saved alot of money that way, which helped pay for the beer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 "...Welcome to the age of $20.00 per hour jobs." Where in hell ARE you that someone pays that much per hour???????!!!!!!!!! "Expect to see the Mafia take over textbook sales in the near future." With the current pricing structure, perhaps they already HAVE..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz-0 Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Part of the reason text book prices have gone up is to push electronic text books. I mean the old text book was $65, they want $65 for the e-book of it? Doesn't fly. You have to jack up the cost of new textbooks to get people to want a different solution for the same price, and to increase the cost of used books so that your non-reuseable e-book is cost competitive across the board. And as for what I hate abotu textbooks, it's the !@#$%$^!!!! priofessors who are essentially no talent hacks who force you to buy their unrelated books that have nothing to do with the course. I actually had a couple of professors who would create a mandatory paper for the class based on their book they made you purchase at a premium. Seriously, if you can tell me what a book on fertility treatment has to do with abnormal psychology, and why I have to write a paper on it for 5% of my grade, you are a more creative person than I. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 "...Welcome to the age of $20.00 per hour jobs." Where in hell ARE you that someone pays that much per hour???????!!!!!!!!! Huh .. New Jersey. I did the math and I make a lot more then that but I still have a hard time making ends meet. Welcome to the state in which a 80 year old 3 bedroom home costs $240K and my car insurance for two cars and two people with perfect records is $2000. Should I talk to you about townships where your property tax payment is getting close to your mortagage payment? I grant you that I am not a hourly employee, but the students we hire make a min of 7.50 and some as much as $15/h Vlad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 The average 80-yr old vintage home with 3-bdr HERE costs at LEAST that much or more. And any home for $240K is on the very LOW end of the Eugene scale, believe me. Eugene is one of those places that fancies itself as its own little San Francisco Bay Area or Silicon Valley but has little to offer in the way of work or business opportunity. (Well, and Silicon Valley is no longer what it used to be in that regard, but never mind.) Even experienced people here in admin type work and admin support rarely break the $9-10/hour mark. Mostly much less. Property taxes? Sheesh, don't ask. Someone's liable to bite your head off. And we have this insulting, totally-unfair state income tax that produces that giant-sucking-sound we've heard so much about. Granted, your car insurance MIGHT be that high owing to the region or area in which you live. In that regard I luck out a bit. I, too, watched academic textbook prices soar as I finished college some years ago. And now the prices of decent reference books in general is stratospheric and has been increasing wildly for a decade or so that I can recall. I don't just go out buyin' books willy-nilly any more--no way. I look for DEALS. Discounts at Borders Books, reduced-costs online sellers, eBay, whatever. Deals! Give me deals!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diehli Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Since we're drifting anyways, let me throw this out there. 2 years and 10 months ago we moved into our new house... the price of the house was ~$195k. If we put our house on the market today, we could probably get between $450k-$475k. That's SoCal for you, folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted September 2, 2004 Share Posted September 2, 2004 Well, then I don't know what to tell you. Not that this is a urination contest, but over here I'm paying property taxes, state income taxes, and sale taxes, which all together are actually getting to equal my federal taxes and I assure you those are not peanuts. I can assume that all of OR is not as bad as your home town so you may consider commuting. Around here, if I want cheaper housing I have to move almost 80 miles over the PA border aor move south almost to the border of Maryland and good luck finding work. Not that PA hasn't been tempting me, at least I could carry there. But, my wife is still in school here in NJ and my job is not terrible so ... I get to pay for her textbooks and bitch about it. The $10/h for sysadmin work does sounds bad though. I made more then that 10 years ago working as a student sysadmin. Boy am I glad I never moved to the left coast during the bubble . At that rate I would change my line of work. Vlad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackdragon Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 Amen Vlad, My wife is still going to school with no unforseeable future, and you bet I bitch about the cost of books. I believe they charge that amount knowing that most students are on pell grants or 2% student loans. I finished school in 1983 it took me almost 10 years to pay off my student loans.At 9% back then that was a good rate also the highest it has ever been. WHAAAAA Ivan SCS Vegas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoNsTeR Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 After 5 years of ridiculous textbook costs for my undergrad, I was ecstatic to pay a mere $120 TOTAL for my first semester of graduate books! Don't get me started on the $160/yr parking pass though... What I REALLY HATE though are professors that don't even KNOW what they textbook that they assigned costs. Some can't even guess to within $25. Did they even look before they assigned it? Do they even CARE? Just bakes my $^@$^ noodle, man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scooter Posted September 3, 2004 Author Share Posted September 3, 2004 My grad school books are still $120. Most people turns towards Amazon to buy used books for much less than what the school still charges for used books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Dimaculangan Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 My first semester of fish year of college.... $480 worth of books!!!! ooooh my god im hoping to get at LEAST 400 of those dollars back when i sell them University of Houston by the way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scooter Posted September 3, 2004 Author Share Posted September 3, 2004 If you are lucky, you might get around $200 to maybe $300. You will get more money if you sell it back as early as possible. Often times it during finals week. Once they met their quota, you get pretty much nothing for your books. Just hope they don't change editions, if they do, you are SOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmccrock Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 Not sure what courses are being bought for, but the cashier at my most recent college endeavor mentioned that Nursing was the most expensive, even compared to my $95 used optical engineering text. What started the conversation was a younger student complaining about $125 for an armful of books. Worse... ok, this is the Hate Forum. I hate buying a required $95 textbook which is obsolete; there was a newer edition, but the professor had not worked up the course yet. I generally keep engineering books. The only one I tried to sell back was refused because the prof was changing it to something else. It was a really bad book; typos, bad explanations, etc. Good for the next class, bad for me. Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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