The end.

Textbook Scams and Schemes

And here is some stats/facts about the historical price increases… and a few decent tips for staving off the high prices to a small degree:

Textbook Prices: a Historical Look

I wasn’t saying I wouldn’t continue fighting it if I it happened to me.

I’m just saying that most people won’t, and that they shouldn’t have to fight over something so trivial.

Being out of the uni system, I don’t really know much about the bill of which you speak, but I will look into it. Sounds creepy, and there are some pretty good community colleges out there (Georgia Perimeter is ok, they have some great study abroad programs actually).

GSU was where he got accepted and the program was interesting. It seems like there is a lot of uproar here. Apparently they’re going to vote on whether or not to have the community colleges get absorbed by the tech schools, effectively eliminating the community colleges here and removing them from the university system. That would seriously affect me because it would cut most of the online courses and there’s no guarantee that any classes I take would even transfer anywhere, especially outside the state.

Are other states doing this? Or is it just Georgia being “peachy”?

Seriously, nobody should ever go to a public college/uni in Georgia. Ask if you want more information on why it took me 6 years to get a 4 year degree and gave me gray hairs at the ripe old age of 25!

And as far as the book prices go… I saw some books jump in price by as much as $30 just in those 3 years (Algebra and Psychology books that went from $98 to $130, for example). It’s ridiculous.

And naturally, when you work in the bookstore, everyone blames the store for everything that makes buying books so torturous.

Please be nicer to your college bookstore employees… they have no control over book prices/stocking of used books!!!!!

IF nothing changes except picture on cover THEN older books can be used in class.

And profs don’t make that much in royalties. If they require a book because they wrote it, it’s an ego thing.

why did I buy the book now?

It varies from one institution to another, and with some places *coughuabcough* you’re not gonna find your book in the library. However, some students do sell their books for less than the bookstore’s used price, but more than they’d get from buyback. During undergrad, the first place I always checked for books was the bulletin board, followed by the independent text stores on campus that didn’t price gouge quite so much.

I do agree that there are some shameless, greedy bastards out there. I’ve gotten lucky so far, I suppose.

Obviously, you took the non-calculus-based prob and stats classes, not the fancy math-major ones. Either that, or you didn’t do so well at Reading Between The Lines 101. ;P

And as an added bonus, the order of the questions in the new edition is different, so when you’re assigned homework problems, or discussing problems with your classmates/professor, you are at a serious disadvantage if you cheaped out and got the old textbook.

Then, when you take Cal II, one of three things happens:
A: The text has undergone yet another revision, and you have to trade in your old book for a new one (and you only get about $20, tops, for selling your old textbook).

B: Your new prof prefers a different publisher’s book. So again, you have to sell your old book to get that new one.

C: Whoops, you sold your old book by mistake. Now you have to waste a ton of money buying it back again.

It’s even more frustrating in the wonderful world of education classes. Each teacher has different ideas of which texts are best suited to each individual class, so you could end up re-using a book for several different classes, or having a different Intro To Special Ed book than your best friend who’s taking the same course under a different teacher. Plus, some teachers never use the book at all, so you’ve basically bought a $100 paperweight/emergency resource.

And don’t even get me started on physics. Same thing, only the books are $250 new.