Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

jcpainpdx t1_iszkvfx wrote

Reply to comment by ExperienceKCC in TIL the price of textbooks increases by an average of 12% with each new edition by ExperienceKCC

Textbook updates are a scam. In some cases, little more than the publication date is updated. Professors will often try to avoid them, unless they’ve authored the books. 😉

34

MitsyEyedMourning t1_iszpy2f wrote

> unless they’ve authored the books.

Of course, because you are totally getting ass blasted and robbed ... unless it is their book.

8

fizzlefist t1_it2qymj wrote

Unless it's one of the really good professors that makes their own material that gets spiral-bound and sold for $20 or less.

3

Mysticpoisen t1_it48xrb wrote

I remember professors required lab manuals that they had written and spiral-bound exclusively available in the school library. $95 each, for the same list of a dozen exercises that were in it the last 10 years. Like, when the book costs $0.95 to make, and hasn't been updated in a decade, you can't upcharge 10000%, that's ridiculous.

1

SyntheticRatking t1_it1tdj8 wrote

Yup. I bought a textbook prior to class exactly 1 time. The registration office flat out lied to me and told me it was required to buy all books before the start of the class or I'd be marked withdrawn on day one (my grants counted withdrawn as failed, so if I got dropped from a class or even tried to change classes, I'd fail out and lose all my funding).

Day one, I pull out the book only for the prof to say "don't buy the book, I know they tell you it's required but we won't use it except for 2 assignments and I'll print out the sections of the book you need for them." Never paid for another text book until after the class had started. In 4 years, I only actually needed 4 textbooks and 1 of them was a "you can't get the access code to the site that 100% of your assignments are on unless you buy the textbook" shills.

7