Textbook Costs

An interesting article in the Los Angeles Times on textbook runaway costs that includes ideas for saving money.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin29aug29,1,7075566.column?coll=la-headlines-business

 

Ian,

I haven't read the article, as I am not a registered user for latimes.com. However, I do agree that textbook costs are way too high. Textbooks were expensive even 5 - 10 years ago and I'm sure it has only gotten worse.

There are plenty of university and college programs (both DL and B & M) that seem affordable, until the textbook costs are factored into the equation (at least 20% above tuition and fees in some cases). After seeing the textbook costs for some MBA programs, I have tried to either find programs with all support materials included, or adjust the per credit hour charge for programs where textbooks are an additional expense. I guess the best things in life aren't so free ...

Michael

 

I'm not registered either.

While blundering my way through higher education, I've noticed that textbook costs vary a great deal and can often be finessed.

Profs invariably assign the latest editions of texts. The used book stores are filled with older editions, often being sold for virtually nothing since the market for used textbooks is weak. So think about buying an older edition. The publishers try to deter that by changing the problem sets from edition to edition. When I took calculus, I bought an older edition of Swokowski for peanuts and just borrowed a classmate's text occasionally and xeroxed the problem sets for a few chapters ahead. (It's going to be harder to do that in a DL class, though. You might see if a classmate will send you the problems.)

My CSUDH-HUX program turned out to be very used-textbook friendly. Many of the assigned texts were standard literary works or classics. Others were familiar texts used by many local schools. I love to haunt the used bookstores in bookstore heaven (aka Berkeley) and spend hours in places like Moes simply for fun, so I had no trouble finding all of the texts that I was looking for and scooped them up for a few bucks each.

You may find a different translation of a Greek text or something. In that case you probably should ask the prof if it's OK to substitute it.

Perhaps some of you DL-ites that have experience with the various online used book sellers might want to tell us which ones you like and why.

 

From my undergrad days, here were a few issues I had with textbooks:

1. Faculty using the same textbook title as the previous year, but a different edition. They would insist on people using the most current edition, even though in most cases, the differences between the two editions were minimal.

2. Faculty using one textbook one year and a completely different text the following year.

In both cases, new students are forced to go to the bookstores, which are coincidentally owned & operated by the university. As well, former students are stuck with textbooks they can't sell.

Post-secondary education is expensive enough without being nickeled and dimed to death on textbook and supplies costs, as well as additional fees charged by the university. In Manitoba, universities and colleges use fees and other levies to get around the government-mandated tuition freeze. Without proper government and private sector funding, post-secondary education will soon become inaccessible to all but the rich and it will become even harder for people to improve their economic standing through education.

Just my $.02

Michael

 

One way that I've found to lessen the costs of textbooks is to buy them from Amazon's UK website. I've often saved $30-50 on a book. That's even after factoring in the cost of shipping. Definitely worth making a comparison.



Tom Nixon

 

Just a thought....

With all the folks taking classes on this board does anybody have a thought about either selling or trading textbooks? Maybe posters could post the text they need and folks could respond via PM or some other method. I know I have a considerable assortment of texts that if somebody needed I could let go of the one's I don't use real reasonable.

any thoughts?

 

Many of the cost saving suggestions mentioned in the above responses are covered in the Los Angeles Times article. It mentions www.campusbookswap.com and BestBook-Buys.com as sources for used textbooks.

 

I always search the net for the best deal for texts. I agree they are very costly and the editions do seem to change every year, so I am constantly having to purchase the newest version. Through my undergrad education (in my last term) the average yearly text cost is around $1200. I do not expect the text cost for an MBA program will vary by much.

William

 

Textbooks are a sore subject with me. Textbook publishing is one of the most profitable sectors of publishing because faculty members pick 'em and students pay for 'em. As a faculty member, publishers focus on giving me free stuff (testbanks, powerpoints, etc.) and rarely point out the cost of books.

I've seen publishers go to changing editions in order to defeat the used market. In particular, they tend to change problem sets and cases, just to mess up students.

A couple of things I do include:

1. Allow students to use any of the last two editions of a book (e.g. 5th or 6th edition of xxx). As for assignments, I give students alternatives based on the edition they have.

2. E-Books - I find that McGraw Hill allows me to create an electronic book that includes only the chapters I want for a lower price. Recently, I used part of an OB book in one of my classes. The book retails for $115. I was able to get about 2/3 of the chapters in an e-book for $46. I could get a black and white paper copy of this book for something around $55.

3. Early communication - I now send my students an email giving them an idea of the options they have book wise before the class starts. That way they can start shoping.

Regards - Andy

 

I have purchased all of my textbooks from Amazon's used textbook website. The deals have been great. I usually save much more than 50% off of what my bookstores have listed the price at.

One problem I see with certain schools is that the ISBN numbers are not provided for the textbooks. This forces you to use the school's bookstore and pay the higher fees.

 

I buy all my textbooks through half.com and have gotten some great deals. I have found that some paper-based distance courses and textbook-specific credit-by-exam options do not require the current edition because the distance course is not rewritten as often as the textbook edition changes.

On the other hand, my calculus course (through University of Texas) requires an out of print 1992 textbook that goes for ~$60 on half.com and is listed for over $700 on ebay. They did call me when I registered and warn me that the required text might be hard to find.

I am not sure that a used textbook exchange here would work unless a lot of people were taking the same courses however.

Elizabeth

 

Using Amazon UK in the US?

I take it this doesn't work for folk in the US, correct (exhange rate issues)?

Starkman

 

Re: Using Amazon UK in the US?

Not at all. I'm U.S.-based and I do this regularly for both my wife (residential school psychology program) and myself (online school counseling program). The price is in pounds, but there are many currency converters on the Internet.

I use my regular credit card and am billed in dollars.



Tom Nixon

 

If you have to buy the latest edition (it is required) go directly to the publisher. There is usually a discount for educational uses and they will ship very quickly.

Example was last year i needed a particular book for an advanced statistics class. Best price I could find was $120 and shipment was 2 to 3 weeks. I contacted the publisher (Oxford publishing in th UK) online, bought it for $85 and shipped the next day, and yes all my transactions were in $US.

Have had similar dealings with McGraw-Hill in the US.

Dealing direct with the publisher we usually get you the latest printing too whihc can have fewer errors. Went this way for my last class, I had printing edition 20, the bookstore was seling printing 10, the list of typos that were in the 10th printing and not mine covered 6 pages.

 

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