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Our oldest is a freshman in college. We just priced out his text books for 2nd semester. Buying them all new would be $850. Buying them used, $250. Every one of his books is available, in the addition needed, used either through Amazon or Barnes and Nobel. He has some workbooks to buy for his Chinese class and he will buy those new otherwise he will get everything used. He got most of his books used for 1st semester and they were all in excellent shape.
He is also going to look into using Nook Study for at least one textbook. The features on that are just amazing. You use it on your computer, not a Nook. One feature is if you copy and paste a quote from a textbook into a paper you are writing it transfers all of the annotation for you!!!
I'm going to look into that. One of my former instructors was an author of some our texts. But this is getting ridiculous how we have to pay these high prices for books but go on to ebay and the international edition is like 50-75% of the cost. It's bullcrap.
Something IS being done about it. Here is a start up company that writes their own textbooks and offers them for FREE online. If you want to buy the paper book version then it costs like 40-50$. Thats how they make their money. However, don't expect anything to change. The big textbook publishers pay the administrators to select their books. I know at my college all the books were, "standardized" meaning the professor couldn't select the book anymore. It was sold with the idea that if all books for each class were the same then it would lower costs, yea right! More like force students to buy over priced textbooks. 150$ for a textbook = complete rip off.
He is also going to look into using Nook Study for at least one textbook. The features on that are just amazing. You use it on your computer, not a Nook. One feature is if you copy and paste a quote from a textbook into a paper you are writing it transfers all of the annotation for you!!!
I downloaded the Nook Study app for my laptop a few months ago and tried a couple of textbooks for a week. Some of the features where disabled because I got trial versions of the textbooks, but I must say that I was impressed.
They do make a Nook Study color eReader that has wi-fi and a web browser.
Quote:
Originally Posted by killer2021
Something IS being done about it. Here is a start up company that writes their own textbooks and offers them for FREE online. If you want to buy the paper book version then it costs like 40-50$. Thats how they make their money. However, don't expect anything to change. The big textbook publishers pay the administrators to select their books. I know at my college all the books were, "standardized" meaning the professor couldn't select the book anymore. It was sold with the idea that if all books for each class were the same then it would lower costs, yea right! More like force students to buy over priced textbooks. 150$ for a textbook = complete rip off.
I like what Flat World is doing, but their selection is very slim, to say the least.
When I went to a public college, individual professors selected which books they would use; publishers targeted individual profs. Except, all the Microbiology teachers used the same book, even though individual profs taught the course how they saw fit. When I transferred into a private college, everything was standardized. No matter what section you got for a particular course, you not only used the same textbook as the rest, but the profs taught from the same syllabus.
I never heard that it was because they got the books cheaper, but I guess it would make sense as they might get a bulk deal.
I downloaded the Nook Study app for my laptop a few months ago and tried a couple of textbooks for a week. Some of the features where disabled because I got trial versions of the textbooks, but I must say that I was impressed.
They do make a Nook Study color eReader that has wi-fi and a web browser.
I like what Flat World is doing, but their selection is very slim, to say the least.
When I went to a public college, individual professors selected which books they would use; publishers targeted individual profs. Except, all the Microbiology teachers used the same book, even though individual profs taught the course how they saw fit. When I transferred into a private college, everything was standardized. No matter what section you got for a particular course, you not only used the same textbook as the rest, but the profs taught from the same syllabus.
I never heard that it was because they got the books cheaper, but I guess it would make sense as they might get a bulk deal.
You can not use Nook Study on any of the ereaders-it is ONLY for Mac's/PC's. The Ereaders do not have the functionality to support Nook Study applications.
I never heard that it was because they got the books cheaper, but I guess it would make sense as they might get a bulk deal.
It's not a cost issue, and the schools don't really get bulk discounts. It's that it's common to have sequences of classes that build on each other- Physics 201 will assume that you learned how to do X when you took the prerequisite Calculus 165 so the instructor won't have to cover certain things again. The Macroeconomics class assumes that you already covered Y in Microeconomics.
You can not use Nook Study on any of the ereaders-it is ONLY for Mac's/PC's. The Ereaders do not have the functionality to support Nook Study applications.
Looks like you are correct. I did some research into the Nook Color a few months ago and kept getting Nookstudy simultaneously. I assumed that the app would work on their own eReader.
The way you put it, the advancement of knowledge is some conspiracy of the universe against college students!
If a professor is getting paid thousands of dollars by book publishers to re-write his/her calculus textbook with different math problems so that students have to buy new textbooks, that does not qualify as the "advancement of knowledge."
Half of the time the ****ing books are not that much different other than a few word changing and such. I wonder how long it'll be before someone steps in and starts forcing these greedy companies to change their policies. It's ridiculous.
I've nearly said a few choice words to people in the bookstore, took me everything to keep my anger down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Luv
I went to college for a year before life took me to another state and major. That major eventually seemed pointless so I dropped out. I ended up going to to a CC in another state, then transferring into a four-year. While all of this college might seem pathetic to some, my point is that I am very well versed in "how to buy a college textbook".
I have given users of CD numerous posts on how to save money buying college textbooks; but many of you seem to be stubborn, thick-headed, and unwilling to accept my advice. There are legitmate ways to turn your $600 a semester book bill into less than $100. But, the same people that I offer this advice to continuously come back to moan about the same "textbook scam" time after time. I am done. I no longer care if you get ripped off, since the reality is that you are letting yourself get ripped off.
International edititions are cheaper because:
1. They are usually entirely in black and white, although you can find some with some color and others that are all color. You can ***** about the costs all you want, the reality is that the majority of American college kids want full color pictures, diagrams, graphs, etc. Color on every page boosts the price per book way up.
2. International Editions are almost always-if not always-soft cover. When given the option between hard-cover and soft-cover, American students generally choose hard-cover. So bother to print soft-cover?
3. International Editions generally do not, if ever, come with extras. No interactive CD or on-line access code. Even if you never use these-and in my opinion they always turn out to be junk-they still drive up the costs. Just like the other two examples, American college students like to buy textbooks with these extras...even if they never use them.
4. Local economy. It makes no sense for a US publisher to sell a textbook to France and charge US prices when textbooks in France are considerably less. They are not cars. If textbooks in France sell for $30 a pop, the IE from a US publisher selling a textbook in France has to sell for the same price in order to remain competitive.
Why hasn't anything been done about it? Because too many US college students and/or their parents still fork over the money no matter how much they ***** about it.
Not me. I've started ordering international editions which are not illegal to sell or use. But I've honestly never seen your advice on how to save.
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