<p>I don’t think the son was asking for the parent to solve the problem for him, and I think asking for a parent’s advice is perfectly acceptable and even a good idea. Isn’t it a good idea for all of us to solicit advice from others who may have been in a particular situation that we have not been in before, assuming we’re not sure which option is best? I didn’t get from this thread that the parent was going to solve the problem for the son or call the college for him. Parent never once said that. Also, as a parent if I am paying for very expensive books, and then a professor pulled this on my student, I would think it was unfair, too. It’s expensive sending a child to college - no need to make it more so and particularly in this manner.</p>
<p>I think that it is common for parents to help with the book buying. Let’s see, the bookstore has my credit card, DD can e-mail her schedule to the store, someone will pack it, have it waiting, and will bill MY credit card. Or, I can shop around on line and find a couple of books. I don’t really think walking by the bookstore to pick up the order is much different than having to pick them up at home. And I might save $200 -$300. </p>
<p>On the custom book issue…Our department did that a few years ago to save money for the students and to lighten their load in their backpacks. It wasn’t the greatest success, so we stopped. However, our intentions were good and it was a book that didn’t have a great buy back record anyway.</p>
<p>I do all of the textbook shopping on line at least a month before the semester starts to get the best deal and so that the kids can start in on the books well before the semester starts. A coworker does the same thing. Sometimes it’s best for the student to just buy the book at the bookstore but I’ve seen him order books internationally to save 30 or 40 bucks on a textbook.</p>
<p>In a large corporation, you have a purchasing department which works to make the best deals with vendors based on volume or maybe an exclusive buying arrangement. Nothing wrong with doing that in a family. I daresay even some colleges have purchasing departments.</p>
<p>Kid shops around online or goes to the bookstore and sends me links for what she needs for class; I pay the bill. For us, that’s part of what we’re willing to fund, and not not helicoptering.</p>
<p>So you feel that the people paying the bills have no right to question them?</p>
<p>Wow! If you really are a college professor that is quite a statement. And if so, I also have to assume you’ve been the recipient of textbook publishers “incentives” . </p>
<p>The textbook companies hand out large amounts of non-1099 compensation to selected profs the same way the pharmaceutical companies hand out lucrative freebies to MD’s. It is how they do business. If you are a prof, you already know this.</p>
<p>The colleges have decided that the customers are the parents, not the students or the parents. The colleges require financial information from the parent and explicitly do not consider the student independent in a financial sense, with few exceptions. Accordingly, the customer issues related to cost are very much the business of the persons paying the bill. Customer service is the province of the college. It is not unreasonable to inquire further up the administrative chain in matters of finance. When it comes to grades, how the course is taught, work required, I would agree these (with some exceptions) fall outside of direct parental responsibility.</p>
<p>I cannot see anything negative about working with your child to get the best deal possible on textbooks, etc. Professors should also learn the difference between want and need as it relates to new textbooks. </p>
<p>You can call it helicoptering or you can call it keeping tabs of on your investment. There is no way I am going to write a check for 40 grand and then say “okay Junior, I hope you have a great experience this year and don’t worry about wasting money because I know it is just part of the whole learning process”</p>
<p>as someone who is going to be buying their textbooks on their own, I think it’s wise to ask others for advice</p>
<p>if my parents were buying, I’d hope they’d do the same thing…</p>
<p>I think the “professor” is a bit cranky</p>
<p>and as a disclaimer-I find helicoptor parents scary…I guess I was raised by binocular parents(so distant they had to look through binoculars to get a glimpse of what i was up to)</p>
<p>Re calculus book author- dunno, son the math major took them with him again.</p>
<p>Re parental involvement. H has ordered books for son in the past. Now that we put him on our credit card (can’t apply to grad schools online without one) he can order his own books online- he had some delivered to our home while he was here over break. One way of finding out where they apply is to look at the credit card statement online…</p>
<p>Oh I love this term! “Binocular parents!” Mine were like that too, I think it was a combination of them wanting me to learn to be independent and them not actually having any idea how to help me in the higher education process. Either way I think its much better than the helicopter. I know some students here, 22 year olds who are adults and will never be able to take care of themselves because they’ve had their hands held their entire lives. They have no idea how to function outside of their mother’s wing, its so sad and a bit scary.</p>
<p>For some reason, I’ve always felt that there’s a lot of room between “crippling dependency” and “felony neglect” and a lot of people, in an attempt to avoid one end up going so far to the other extreme that they end up advocating something that doesn’t make sense and no one would actually do. That’s why you hear stories about parents lecturing the Board of Regents at a college because their child didn’t get an A on an assignment that he turned in 4 years after he graduated, or parents who refuse to even provide financial information for the FAFSA and force their kids onto this forum to post frenzied pleas for help from the well-meaning but helpless horde that is College Confidential.</p>
<p>You’ll still have to pay for the textbooks on the ipad, plus the initial $500 for the machine, although it would be nice not to have to lug around textbooks, they do take up a lot of room on shelves.</p>
<p>The one feature I liked on the video is that you can move your highlighted areas over to a new page for study notes. The negative is that you only get to keep the e textbook for 180 days.</p>
<p>I never had any intention of calling the college, but I sure as hell have the right to complain about the professor–just not to the college! S did decide what to do in this situation–he called to ask me to put money in his account so he could afford to buy the books from the bookstore. Unlike fummer10 (according to what she wrote in another thread), S doesn’t get an allowance of $100-200 a week.</p>
<p>I order the books because I’m the one with the credit card, and I’m good at shopping for bargains online. Buying the overpriced books at the bookstore (even used) is ridiculous when I can get them online for half the cost.</p>