<p>In 2010, the annual in-state cost for the typical state university soared to more than $15,000, and private colleges now charge an average of $35,600 a year. As if college kids (and their parents) aren't financially drained enough, there's yet another inflated price they face: college textbooks. College students pay an average of $900 a year on textbooks and other supplies.</p>
<p>College textbook prices have skyrocketed by 186% since 1986, and these expensive volumes of knowledge now account for 26% of the overall cost of college. Unfortunately, broke college students are required to purchase these costly books for their classes. At least they can try to sell their books back to local book store at the end of the semester - for a few measly bucks.*</p>
<p>IMHO, movie theater soda has an even more ridiculous markup than the popcorn. Soda from a fountain costs pennies at most, even including the paper cup and the labor of the server.</p>
<p>Well, quite frankly, I think tuition is a MUCH bigger issue than textbooks. There are ways around the textbook issue - at most schools, ISBN numbers are available early or you can request said numbers from your professor. That means you have all sorts of avenues for finding your textbooks, from abebooks to Amazon z-shops to eBay. International versions of hefty business, econ, or science textbooks CAN be purchased for signficant discounts - they’re usually soft cover and don’t have colored pictures, reducing costs. The only issue with that is you have to be proactive when it comes to reselling, since bookstores near campus won’t buy them back. Otherwise, you can get pretty signficant returns on the U.S. version of textbooks - my campus bookstore will recoup 50% of the cost, and that’s the lowest you can expect to get.</p>
<p>Textbooks are overly expensive, true, but with a little foresight and planning you can severely reduce the cost.</p>
<p>umcp11 in our case I wish it was true that we could get the ISBN numbers early. They do not give that out about 2 weeks before classes start so end having to buy from them just to make sure you have them. You can request used but the odds of those are somewhere between nil and impossible. It bothers me a lot for our D to pay $700 per semester for text books that I know can be found cheaper if we are given the time.</p>
<p>Text prices will be coming down as more students rent eBooks. This has the potential of substantially reducing textbook costs even as it allows the publishers to make even more money.</p>
<p>percussiondad - there is a new law (yes, Congress got involved) that colleges now are supposed to give you the ISBN numbers when you register for a class. Colleges also are not supposed to randomly require ‘new’ editions.
Look for changes.</p>
<p>Now Greeting Cards - what a ripoff. I know I should buy them but I don’t. I just can’t cough up $3 for a happy birthday. I would rather it go for a gift.</p>
<p>Printer Ink - should it cost more than blood???</p>
<p>My kid isn’t registering for classes until SATURDAY for classes that start on Tuesday. Not exactly a lot of lead time! (I think he’ll have more time in the future though.)</p>
<p>same here mathmom. S registers at 4pm Friday (last time slot, random based on id number) and starts class Tuesday. Hopefully he can register earlier for the next session and have more options.</p>
Not to mention tickets for pop music concerts, which have mysteriously gone completely through the roof in the ten years or so since my wife and I were last in the habit of going to concerts. Tickets at medium-sized venues that would have ranged from $20 to $40 back then are now selling in the $100s and $200s, and we’re not talking about platinum acts here, either. What the heck happened?</p>
Yes, and no. Expensive? Maybe. But the right greeting card can deliver a heartfelt message for those who have trouble finding the right words. And don’t forget that there is a lot of waste in the greeting card business. What percentage of cards on the shelf are actually sold? When you increase costs of inventory to reflect waste, obsolescence, and shrinkage, the markup might not be so much.</p>
<p>And who said that writers shouldn’t get paid? Somebody is coming up with those witty phrases and tender sentiments. Don’t they deserve compensation?</p>
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Why the authors couldn’t have gone right for the jugular and omitted the word “textbooks” is a mystery to me. Everything about college is overpriced. Do the math on your meal plan. Compare the monthly cost of your bathroom at the end of the hall dorm room to an apartment. And look at how tuition has increased at a rate that dwarfs the CPI. Textbooks are the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>And gee, thanks so much for more federal legislation designed to make people feel good but not really do much.</p>
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<p>Being a germaphobe I understand avoiding public water fountains. But I have to agree with this one.</p>
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Choose your poison here. Why are printers themselves practically free (entry level printers, not scanners or all-in-ones)? Because the companies make it back on the ink.</p>
<p>You may be able to buy a surprisingly affordable printer at your local office supply store, but don’t start celebrating just yet. The printer companies make their biggest bucks on ink. Comparing the cost of one commodity to an unrelated commodity (ink v. blood?!) is just stupid. Milk costs more per gallon than gasoline, but you can’t drink gasoline.</p>
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I just spent a day at a well known east coast outlet mall. I was amazed at the supposedly discounted prices of high end fashion. My favorite moment was examining a very nice sweater at the Armani store. A [del]vulture[/del] salesperson descended upon me to inform me that these were 75% off. Cool. Retail price $3,380. For a sweater. I decided that I’d rather spend $845 on, well, just about anything else. My favorite part of shopping the outlet mall (aside from getting great bargains if you shop aggressively) is knowing that somewhere, someone actually paid retail price for everything there.</p>
<p>I found number seven. This will definitely resonate with parents of high-schoolers: [xkcd:</a> 1996](<a href=“http://xkcd.com/768/]xkcd:”>xkcd: 1996)</p>
<p>Who ever wrote that list must not shave, because I find <em>good</em> razor blades to be crazy expensive. At least I enjoy the popcorn. I don’t enjoy shaving at $4.00 a blade (or more)</p>
<p>ISBN numbers 2 weeks in advance is plenty of time to order online via other outlets than campus bookstore or nearby used book exchanges.</p>
<p>Additionally, professors will often list the latest edition as the requirement, but I have had very few who did not allow an older edition in the classroom. Communicate with your profs! It’s true that a lot of students don’t like taking the “gamble” that their text will be different/hard to follow/etc. I have never found it to be the case that the editions were radically (or at all) different. Sometimes profs assign problem sets out of the textbook, and IN that case it may be necessary to have a newer edition. But, that’s not going to be the case for every class and every textbook - if you communicate with your prof before the class starts, you should know if and why he or she requires or recommends the latest edition.</p>
<p>People will always pay $700+ for textbooks for the security buying newest editions, from the campus bookstore, brings. That doesn’t mean there aren’t alternatives if you are a confident student, and cost-conscious.</p>