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l4stun1c0rn t1_j1czsvl wrote

Reply to comment by Downvote_me_dumbass in [OC] The Average Cost of Attending College in Each US State by malxredleader

Can you please enlighten me what campus fees are? And how are books 1300 bucks? There's libraries. This is so foreign to my European ass.

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vazxlegend t1_j1d38z3 wrote

Colleges estimate cost of books as if you have to buy every book for every class brand new, (some base on the cost of the mandatory books for each class*the cost of the book at the campus book store) That’s not the case, however, some professors/classes do demand brand new text books (for one reason or another) which can cost in the realm of $60-$300 each. Some classes require multiple textbooks. Some degrees have a higher rate of needing brand new text books (such as degrees that require certain program codes that are included in the text book).

You can likely get away for most classes (Atleast undergrad) with used books/PDF versions that are much cheaper.

Campus Fees could be multiple different things, not sure what’s included at UC. I’ve seen other colleges (might be the case here as well) include the cost of Parking passes, campus services (such as a psychologist health clinic) mandatory funds for your campus identification card to be spent on campus. The list could go on and on.

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l4stun1c0rn t1_j1d55v1 wrote

Thanks! Still insane to me. Of course all my professors promoted their books as well, but I rarely bought them. The newest edition was almost always available at the library.

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Lycoris1313 t1_j1dghdv wrote

The library also doesn’t have enough copies for everyone in the classes. I met for classes every day and you had 24 hours to do homework. If you went to the library to use one of the maybe 5 copies of the book, chances are that they’d be in-use and you’d have to wait in a long queue. God save you if you were part of a lecture hall or if there were multiple sessions of the same class.

As an engineering student, I had a number of classes which required a unique code to access the online content and homework. The codes were often over $150 and only gave access for the duration of the course.

There is also an alarming number of professors who write their own books and FORCE you to buy them for their class.

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l4stun1c0rn t1_j1h6odz wrote

You had homework? In College? Every single day? Jesus Christ. That sounds like a nightmare. Library had everything multiple times. If what you needed wasn't there, you could preorder. Or ask the library to buy things. Library has a certain budget each year where students could just express wishes and they would buy everything within the budget. Professors would even scan the important pages of their books and upload them in the course material folder.

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Ok_Ad_7939 t1_j1dyw6l wrote

The whole class of 25 to 1000 students for a given class and multiple sections can’t use one or two library books! Most college engineering textbooks in the 1980s were $50 to $100 apiece. Probably a lot more today in this year’s dollars, but thankfully many of the texts are online now.

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Ok_Ad_7939 t1_j1e2c1v wrote

There are fees to cover administrative costs, gyms, student activities, campus medical service, busses, things like that.

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l4stun1c0rn t1_j1h7dxt wrote

That's what I imagined. Still way too much imho.

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