<p>D ended up switching to a different calculus class right before classes started, so that was the one expensive book she returned. The book she needed for the new class was on Amazon for $30 to rent (no custom) and is not due back until Dec18th. However, D is taking the next calc level in the spring with this same professor who is actually a bio professor. The calculus book and class is designed for biology majors, so the problems are all related to biology. Well now D will need this same book again that she is renting now. I probably could have bought the book for $70 ish had I known. Do I send it back to Amazon and re-rent or will they let D re-rent it without sending it back? </p>
<p>D’s campus bookstore will provide the ISBN number, author’s last name and an abbreviated title when the course code is entered, but if the book is part of a required “custom” package with a required online access code, just having the ISBN doesn’t help to find a cheaper version. i tried to find the regular version of some of the books in case the professors said the online code wasn’t needed, but I had no way of knowing if the book I found was the same book/edition the professor wanted. I was worried D would end up with the wrong book or end up reading the wrong pages, so I paid the premium prices. Ugh…</p>
<p>chiming in to say, out of all the items that colleges nick us for (charges for transcripts after paying $60k, huh?), textbooks is not a big deal as far as I’m concerned. Sure, STEM books cost a bunch, but they can last all year, and can be resold for ~30%.</p>
<p>Better yet, play their game: buy from Amazon and then resell to the bookstore or back to Amazon. Cheaper than rental.</p>
<p>fwiw: with a little legwork, the bundles can be unbundled, and items purchased piecemeal.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, I wish I could do that, but the professors here mostly have custom books and/or require the online access code, as well. When buying the access code alacarte, the price is only about $30 less than buying the book and the code. That’s how they got us.</p>
<p>Since I grew up poor, $30 is a nice meal out. I’ll take the savings nearly every time. (The point is, that the savings IS available.)</p>
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<p>No, you enabled them by paying for shrink wrap convenience. (I get that its a time-value proposition.) Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t believe it fair to complain when you chose to purchase the bundle (for convenience?).</p>
<p>Very good point, BB, and especially true if you compare a school costing 55,000 a year to one that costs 63,000 dollars. At that level, the prices of the books are trivial. However, consider the same case for a student with a very low EFC, and perhaps a net cost of attendance of 1,000! Unless the school is on top of things, the COA budget might not reflect the current cost of books. In this case, a difference between 1,000 in books and 2,000 is a nice piece of change! Of course, I also understand that the budget might account for a very smart purchase and resale process using Amazon or other sources. Yet, most students might check the bookstore by default or simply try to skip the purchase. </p>
<p>My perspective is that the differences in perception account for much of the way the industry has protected its turf. In the public K-12, parents do not see a bill for the books their school system is buying. I believe that if all parents were to receive an itemized bill that separate the direct cost of education from other matters such as athletics and book purchases, we might have a different reaction. The current system works because most costs are hidden behind a curtain of secrecy. Coupled with the amazing apathy of voters in matters of education, you have a recipe for corruption and abuses. And both are rampant throughout our system. </p>
<p>When it gets to the next level, it’s more a matter of “what can one do” as the books are mandatory and (as you wrote) represent a small fraction of the total cost of 4 to 6 years of education. That, and the fact that the costs are simply “shared” with the parents, as in the student buys and uses Mom’s and Dad’s credit card! </p>
<p>All in all, the above does not change much to the overall issue. Academic books are too expensive and we have NO need for so many new versions. The issue of the test banks needing to stay fresh is a canard. Any educator worth its paycheck should be able to prepare a test that remains fresh and timely. In a way, it goes to the heart of a different problem, and one that is especially true in K-12: educators are unable to teach a class without the crutch of a Teacher’s edition and access to an editor’s site for tests. </p>
<p>From books to teachers’ preparation and training, there are few surprises left about how we get where we are. And it ain’t pretty! </p>
<p>Many faculty stay with old edition as long as possible so they don’t have to upgrade their courses (page references, homework problems, etc.). The problem is that the publisher stops printing the old edition and faculty are then forced to roll to the new edition. I remember one summer when I wasn’t ready to go to new edition yet and our bookstore had to get creative to find enough books from the old edition to provide inventory for the course. Bookstore manager really wanted me to upgrade, but I insisted that I was not ready to upgrade the course in the 2-3 weeks that I would have had. He had to scramble.</p>
<p>Anyone remember that story about 2 books listed on Amazon that went up to $130 million or something ridiculous, because they both priced their books in terms of the price of others and went through this loop where the price increased every day?</p>
<p>I never found textbook prices to be a problem. If it was an actual textbook it was available in the library when I needed it. 80% of the time you could download the PDF for free too. </p>
<p>bluebayou, No, it’s not the shrink wrap convenience. It’s $30 less without the book. Add in the $150 book and the package is only $30 more. With the hours of daily reading D has to do, she prefers reading on paper vs on a screen. Also, we can sell the book used for $30. It doesn’t make sense to buy just custom book online access. $150 for online (required access) or $180 for paper text plus online required. It makes more sense to buy the bundle and then sell the book later to break even along with having had the benefit of studying from an actual book. </p>
<p>Have any of you tried the route of importing textbooks from abroad? Many US textbooks have “International Editions” that are sold through online retailers in Europe (like Amazon UK) for a much lower price. Usual differences are the cover, the paper and, sometimes, exercises. For courses where only expositive content is relevant, that might be a way of saving a lot of money.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why, at this day and age of tablets, online rich content, Kindle, apps everywhere, printed textbooks still dominate many university campuses. </p>