Facts Aside: Textbooks are Too Expensive

I have been in contemplation for around a week already. “What to write? How to write? What’s my angle?” Writing for a blog is nothing like writing for the Tripod, right? So, here’s my opinion – facts aside.

Text books are too expensive! No matter what PIRGs or politicians claim they’re going to do about it, textbook prices are undeniably overpriced and on-the-rise. I know that many of you do not pay out of pocket for your books, nor do you pass tangible notes to pay for them. But every semester, I go to the bookstore dreading the final tally as the cashier rings me out. My hands even shudder, occasionally, as I try to nonchalantly fan out my pay check and extend my arm to trade-in SEVERAL hours of hard work.

I swear it wouldn’t hurt as bad if I didn’t know that there must be more cost-effective ways to round-up textbooks. Why is it that students, and teachers, are in denial about the handle these publishing houses and book chains have on us? Should your/my Economics textbook really cost $160? Time-and-again I have attempted to shame my professors into finding more equitable publications. Often, they explain that the reason we cannot use last semester’s text (ones the bookstore would at least have cheaper used copies of) is that the publishing house closed-out one edition and released a “more up-to-date” edition. How much can really change from one year to the next when it comes to Algebra!? Has the primary number system changed, or something? Does E no longer equal mc2?

One semester, during my quest for an alternative to the robber baron’s option, I tried using a completely different text from the requirement for my Political Science 101 course. Basically, the only differences were the cover – mine had a photo of Elvis shaking Nixon’s hand the day he got a revolver through security and into the White House – and chapters four and five were inverted (while ten didn’t really exist). Minor set-back, major savings! Had I bought the required text, I would have paid around 75 bucks worth of groceries.

Another time I tried the online text book fiasco. Somehow I managed an A+ (thank you) even though I could never flip back the damn page where the answer was! I tried printing the chapters, thinking that would assist my dilemma, but all I ended up with was a lot of kindling for the fireplace I don’t have since the chapters were promptly shuffled when my 9-year-old brother visited. I even think I lost half a point on my last eye exam due to squinting at the screen for hours on-end. This tactic was still more equitable than buying the textbook because Sociology is another subject that publishers feel entitled to switching fonts and lay-outs of for the annual “updated” edition. My six-month subscription cost roughly half that of the textbook – to quote Borat, “verrry nice”.

So, on another note, I don’t know if you ever made a New Year’s resolution to get an old friend of yours’ to enroll in college four years after graduating high school, but I did. And that meant compromising by taking a silly Digital Photography course and sharing textbooks. We decided sharing was necessary 1) because we planned on studying together, and 2) because two texts were required totaling about $178 (on top of a new manual digital camera and PhotoShop CS2). Then, the rent was due! I ended up borrowing the books from different libraries which actually worked-out. I had custody of them most of the time and we never had to go to counseling to decide who got the weekends. A little advise, though – don’t share texts. Oh, and remember to renew.

Since I am still writing a blog article I’ll close with a call-to-action. Let’s use this new forum to advertise our used texts for fellow students to purchase. We should also post our textbook needs here. While the money-saving options I mentioned may work for some of you, some of the time, circumstances usually don’t offer such leniency. Let’s assist our fellow students, make an extra buck for ourselves, and teach the publishing houses a lesson via the bookstore’s register.

Sooo, allow me tell you what I’ve got and what I need:

Needed:

An Introduction to Language and Linguistics by Fasold and Connor-Linton

Economics; 17^th Edition by McConnell

Using + Understanding Math; 3^rd Edition by Bennett

Selling:

The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Freedman

Photo Courtesy of www.familycourtchronicles.com

1 Comment

• 
  Andrea Wise January 23, 2008 at 10:06 pm

  Textbooks are ridiculously expensive, but unless you need the latest edition that was published in ’08 (damn, you Biology) you can find the same book for considerably cheaper on Amazon. I’m sure that there are even cheaper places to get books, but I know that, for example, one of my philosophy books was $20 at the bookstore (not bad already but wait…) and I got it for $0.34 on Amazon. Yeah, 34 cents. I wouldn’t mind paying hundreds of dollars for books if the bookstore would buy them back for more. I tried selling back about five books last week and the most they offered me was $1.50 for each. I don’t know how to solve the problem, though. Why can’t college just have class sets of books that they check out at the beginning of the semester–the way they do it in High School. Then you don’t have to pay for your books unless you loose them.