Why I Hate College Bookstores

[Reloader]

A friend ripped his $75 book apart in front of them (he still owned it). Police was called as was told the store wanted the book but was offering .25 cents for it and wanted him prosecuted. Police said to store, "get lost or they would go to jail!' It is still his book.Had to file with the Provost to get his other books. Store manager was fired. end of problems.

[OldSchool]

The professors are in on the scam as well.

I'd like to see some of that "scam" money.

I've been as shocked as anyone when I found out the prices on new books. I complained enough about the content in the old book we were using (much of it opinionated and wrong), that I was in on choosing the new book for this Fall. Far better, and significantly cheaper (paperback helps). Still not like the $15 texts I bought when first starting college, but the dollar has decreased in worth 8-10 times in that period as well.

It really boils down to what students are capable of paying. When I went, student loans were small and infrequent; I worked my way through school (so it took many, many years longer than the "norm"). As of now, far too many students have been going on student loans (and credit cards) for far too long, such that the colleges and book publishers have decided they can charge about anything they want -- with no one fighting back. In fact, the statistics show that, as of this year, student loans are the fastest-increasing category of consumer debt. A vicious spiral upwards, and it's going to come down hard in the future, because students are finally seeing that they will probably never be able to repay their college debt!

ETA: I still have essentially all of my textbooks. I believe in books, and have made good use of them (in all subjects) for myself and my family for many years. We were dirt poor, and books were mighty good friends.

[snatchel]

I really shouldnt be complaining. I got my first BA in the military, and decided to go back to school after separation so Im using the GIBILL now. It gives me a 500 dollar stipend for books, plus the 1100 a month for living expenses. I also qualify for FAFSA financial aid -2,500 a semester. And since i have maintained a 3.9 GPA for about 6 yeats now i have a few scholarships That bring in a couple grand a semester. Point is Im not exactly unable to afford their corruption, I just hate that they can do this legally.

Several times i have been able to sell the books back because of edition changes-garbage
Paying 200 for a book and selling it back for 3.25 - garbage
Not allowing me to give rentals back because of damage I didnt do-garbage

Its unbearable. Oh, and I have to disarm when i go to the bookstore. I think i figured out why though-- My CHL allows me to defend myself against all manner of crime, right? Guess they dont want me defending myself while they rob me several hundred dollars every few months :)

Amazon.com is my new friend....

[OldSchool]

...and decided to go back to school after separation so Im using the GIBILL now. It gives me a 500 dollar stipend for books, plus the 1100 a month for living expenses.

You're fortunate. One of our sons is out, and VA has yet to get him sufficient money for books -- and never on time.

Several times i have been able to sell the books back because of edition changes-garbage
Paying 200 for a book and selling it back for 3.25 - garbage
Not allowing me to give rentals back because of damage I didnt do-garbage

To be fair, the bookstores haven't sufficient managerial understanding to figure out what to do with used books, so I think they sort of "wing" it and do what all the others do. They could do better, if they knew enough -- and that's all I care to say about that.

Amazon.com is my new friend....

You seem to have found the answer!

[03Lightningrocks]

My son went to UTA his first four years. He was on an "all you can eat" tuition plan. He would take 18 hours or more of classes per semester. I can remember getting bills for the books that would be over a thousand bucks in total per semester. This was a high end occasion but spending 800 was a regular situation. he would take them back and they would offer him 20 bucks for 800 dollars in books. We would attempt to buy used books to save money but the professors would play games with book requirements and updates that would force him to buy new or buy books with missing information. As the years went by, he and the others would make it a game attempting to end around this travesty. They would share books and even swap out with each other to keep the book store from ripping them off. There were times when he would throw them away rather than let that bookstore make a buck off the scam.

He spent three years at U of H school of law and the situation was just as bad but we didn't have to buy books for as many classes so it lowered the total cost. 250 dollar books were not an unusual occurence. While politicians are pretending they want to lower tuition costs for the "poor"(those who refuse to work), the schools are simply sticking it to the students in other ways.

Meanwhile, the socialists that represent Obama and his anti-American beliefs are making every attempt to corrupt the minds of the students who are there because of parents with conservative values. It is quite a twist watching a student who has been brainwashed in the ways of socialism, turn away from the values of Obamanism once they go out in the real world.

When libtard Professors preach equality and "share the wealth", they are talking about everybody else, it is OK for them to screw over hard working people for a buck.

[The Annoyed Man]

My mother authored a couple of textbooks for French classes. Guess which books she used when she taught her own classes? The cost back then wasn't even close to today's prices, but I seem to remember that it went for about $25 or so, and this was back in the 1970s. OTH, she didn't get rich on it either. In the end, she pretty much did it for the love of teaching, because I'll bet that she didn't make more than a penny an hour for all the tons of time she put into it—if she made anything at all.

The cold hard reality of textbook pricing (even if you remove the university's artificially induced overpricing) is that they just aren't published in large enough numbers, compared to commercial fiction for instance, to keep the unit production cost down. Add in that the authors deserve to get paid for their work, the distribution network costs have to be covered, and the publisher needs to make a profit, and the retail cost per unit goes up considerably.

That may not change the fact that a given university's bookstore is run by crooks and enforces insane policies, but even if they were run by Mother Teresa, the books would still be pretty expensive. Academia ought to be called out on the ecological impact of their revisions. The rational way to do textbooks in this day and age is to have students buy a Kindle, or a Nook, or an iPad (or some other similar technology costing a fraction of a semester's book budget), and make the textbooks available for download at a very reduced price. The technology costs a small portion of a total book budget; the books can sell for much less money; the cost of producing electronic revisions is vastly less expensive than reprinting a book; you get to save a tree; you only need to buy the device once and you can resell it if you decide you don't want to keep it upon graduation........WHY AREN'T THEY ALREADY DOING THIS????

[OldSchool]

My mother authored a couple of textbooks for French classes. Guess which books she used when she taught her own classes? The cost back then wasn't even close to today's prices, but I seem to remember that it went for about $25 or so, and this was back in the 1970s. OTH, she didn't get rich on it either. In the end, she pretty much did it for the love of teaching, because I'll bet that she didn't make more than a penny an hour for all the tons of time she put into it—if she made anything at all.

The cold hard reality of textbook pricing (even if you remove the university's artificially induced overpricing) is that they just aren't published in large enough numbers, compared to commercial fiction for instance, to keep the unit production cost down. Add in that the authors deserve to get paid for their work, the distribution network costs have to be covered, and the publisher needs to make a profit, and the retail cost per unit goes up considerably.

That may not change the fact that a given university's bookstore is run by crooks and enforces insane policies, but even if they were run by Mother Teresa, the books would still be pretty expensive. Academia ought to be called out on the ecological impact of their revisions. The rational way to do textbooks in this day and age is to have students buy a Kindle, or a Nook, or an iPad (or some other similar technology costing a fraction of a semester's book budget), and make the textbooks available for download at a very reduced price. The technology costs a small portion of a total book budget; the books can sell for much less money; the cost of producing electronic revisions is vastly less expensive than reprinting a book; you get to save a tree; you only need to buy the device once and you can resell it if you decide you don't want to keep it upon graduation........WHY AREN'T THEY ALREADY DOING THIS????

It is being done, and is increasing in use.
Two problems that I have with it (and has been corroborated by many of my students, young and old):
1) With an e-book, the purchaser no longer owns the book. As with all (stupid) intellectual property laws, the "software" is owned by the author or distributor, and can be disabled at any time.
2) It seems that many people can not easily read electronic ink or LCD devices. We just bought two (a cheap LCD tablet for me, a Nook for DynaBlue) for our recent trip. While they have their very nice points, there are times when they simply aren't as eye-friendly as regular paper.
3) It would probably be unusable in 50 years, unlike our physical books (how about if Einstein's original treatises on Gravity had been originally published in e-format?).

As with everything, one size does not fit all. It has it's place, but it has its problems.

[paulhailes]

My brother is going to UNM next year and they claim all their book will be available on the iPad

[dicion]

A friend ripped his $75 book apart in front of them (he still owned it). Police was called as was told the store wanted the book but was offering .25 cents for it

Wow.. only a fourth of a penny.. I certainly would be irritated too.

Sorry, labelling prices ".whatever Cents" is a big pet peeve of mine, because it can result in BIG problems for things sometimes.
I once argued a McDonalds to get a cheeseburger for 1 penny, because their sign outside said ".99 Cent Double Cheeseburgers". Told em they could even keep the .01 Cent change. I wasn't picky.

If you want to see the most egregious case of this on the internet, google 'Verizon Math'

[apostate]

Academia ought to be called out on the ecological impact of their revisions. The rational way to do textbooks in this day and age is to have students buy a Kindle, or a Nook, or an iPad (or some other similar technology costing a fraction of a semester's book budget), and make the textbooks available for download at a very reduced price. The technology costs a small portion of a total book budget; the books can sell for much less money; the cost of producing electronic revisions is vastly less expensive than reprinting a book; you get to save a tree; you only need to buy the device once and you can resell it if you decide you don't want to keep it upon graduation........WHY AREN'T THEY ALREADY DOING THIS????

Oh, but they are doing it, except for the part about "a very reduced price."

Let me give you an example from the class I'm taking now. The electronic version of the textbook (from the publisher) costs roughly 3/4 of the campus bookstore price for a new book. That sounds like a nice discount. However, it's single user and non-transferable. It's also more than I paid Amazon for the new textbook plus Monster Hunter Vendetta.

[The Annoyed Man]

Academia ought to be called out on the ecological impact of their revisions. The rational way to do textbooks in this day and age is to have students buy a Kindle, or a Nook, or an iPad (or some other similar technology costing a fraction of a semester's book budget), and make the textbooks available for download at a very reduced price. The technology costs a small portion of a total book budget; the books can sell for much less money; the cost of producing electronic revisions is vastly less expensive than reprinting a book; you get to save a tree; you only need to buy the device once and you can resell it if you decide you don't want to keep it upon graduation........WHY AREN'T THEY ALREADY DOING THIS????

Oh, but they are doing it, except for the part about "a very reduced price."

Let me give you an example from the class I'm taking now. The electronic version of the textbook (from the publisher) costs roughly 3/4 of the campus bookstore price for a new book. That sounds like a nice discount. However, it's single user and non-transferable. It's also more than I paid Amazon for the new textbook plus Monster Hunter Vendetta.

Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed. I'm also glad that school is behind me......for now. I had planned on perhaps attending a seminary after I retire. Hopefully, their book prices would be less usurous. Accountability to a higher power, and all that.....

[aggie_wes]

go to the campus bookstore and write down the ISBN for all the books you need.

Proceed to campusbooks.com and buy them for 50% or less of the cost at the bookstore.

I saved several hundred dollars a semester doing this. Also, see if you can get international editions. They are the same book, but paperback and usually no color print. Several of my engineering books were $150 at the bookstore, and the international edition could be had for $10.

[OldCannon]

My brother is going to UNM next year and they claim all their book will be available on the iPad

Yeah, there's some positive reasons to move to an electronic format, and it's giving publishers nightmares While it's true that you technically "lose" ownership rights to electronic materials, there are three things that have significant potential to destroy the existing publishing market:
1) Collaborative publishing. Since material in textbooks is often just organized from existing public works (or fair representation), many texts can be created from collaboration a la wikipedia or from drawing from books that have expired copyrights. These works could (likely would0 be released under a Creative Commons licensing
2) Dramatically lower cost textbook prices with specific expansions that go with the course progression (Calc I, II, and III, for instance)
3) University library checkouts -- electronic textbooks, since they can't be damaged, can easily be "loaded" from the university library system.

There's the 4th option which already exists, and that's a rather insidious industry that photocopies textbooks and makes them freely available in PDF form if you know where to look. It's happened with both my books, although I can honestly say that I do'nt think it had an impact on book sales.

[tbrown]

Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed.

Why? They're following a model very similar to iTunes. Buying a whole album from iTunes costs about the same as buying the physical CD. They cut down production and distribution costs, but the consumer doesn't share the savings.

[03Lightningrocks]

Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed.

Why? They're following a model very similar to iTunes. Buying a whole album from iTunes costs about the same as buying the physical CD. They cut down production and distribution costs, but the consumer doesn't share the savings.

I hadn't looked at it that way, but your right. I usually buy the CD and then put the songs on my IPODS and IPHONE. I like having the CD and artwork. I recently found a great deal on the Led Zeppelin Definitive Collection on Amazon. iTunes had it for 99.00 with no artwork. I paid 119.00 for the "real deal". It kind of bugged me that iTunes wanted almost a hundred dollars for a digital copy while the hard copy CD set was only 20 dollars more. Back to the topic of digital books. I have found a few Kindle books that where around 20% of the hard copy costs but these were high volume books. Text Books probably get a premium due to the low volume. Regardless... the books can be harder to pay for than the tuition. Then again, don't get me going on the cost of housing near a campus. Talk about a rigged game!!! My son utilized a combination of student loans, scholorships and help from me and his grandma but is still in debt for almost 60K. He has friends who have amassed 150K and more in student loans. That would buy a house!!!!