So I have started to do my budgeting for the fall semester and one of the first things I do is calculate how much my textbooks are going to cost me. Normally they will run between $600-800 for the semester but this was the total I got this time from the excel worksheet: $1307.50 This is after our state has passed laws starting to limit the amount of price inflation on textbooks and also to start breaking up the packages (i.e. book comes with DVD, online web access code, blow up doll, etc) that is used to jack up the price. So since I like comparisons (esp. venn diagrams and charts ) how much are you paying for textbooks this fall and what is the most you have paid in one semester for textbooks?
Most I've paid, about £120 in a semester. I get my books from the library where I can, buy a little, and learn most of what I do from the internet. If a degree wasn't just as much about getting a piece of paper as it is learning, then I could have done one for the cost of living and 4 years of an internet connection.
what i found is the list of books they recomend is a load of rubish... you wont need them at the start anyway (well i never did), so you just wait and find out which ones you are actualy going to need. for me last year it was 2 out of 8 of my recomended list of books. so saved my self like £200-£300 and just got the ones i needed towards the end of the first term.
I buy second hand books, and if you wait a couple of weeks into the new semester half of the books can be obtained for free in pdf form. My biggest mistake was to buy my book on coorperate organisation. Course is completed and book is still in the plastic wraps.
I went into the Uni on an open day so I could buy the most important text book before the semester started.
You can buy photocopies, you'll be surprised what a lot of local stores can have in their special inventory. Many students does that in my classes. Or if you want to stay legal, go at the library of you school. Our book cost about 200-300$ each.. and they are mediocre at best, and bad formatting. What I notice, is that books start inexpensive.. maybe 30-40$. Then a department of school (high-school, college, university, etc.) makes the arrangements with the publisher to get sufficient copies, and the price magically jack up at around 100$ easy. And every year, with new B.S edition (move chapters around) they increase the price. Then they add this crap web access which provide no helpful information to a student, to add more fake value to a movie. It's a joke. And it's not like the author makes anything, unless your book get crazy popular. One author COULD publish them self the book, but good luck, as no one will even look at the cover page as it's not from a renown publishing company (like it really determined the quality of the content). These are comments I was told by many author of books from my College and University professors. One professor told how it works with his current publishing company. He get 1.5% of profits, AFTER the publishing company decides that the number of sales of the book paid off the production cost. What is the production cost? You don't know... It's hidden from the author, you just have to trust the publisher, which is what you agree under a signed agreement. Apparently all publishers follow the same layout. His book got excellent reviews, and ended up in the U.N library. It took 7 years for him to get his first check of under 100$, and he claims to be making under 75-100$ per year. WOW that paid off! He doesn't write anymore.
something i noticed from last year is that my teachers all wanted me to buy there book of the subject so i guess that explains why they dont want to feel like it was a huge waste of time makeing the dam thing.
hmm, maybe I can make some money doing a "book digitizing" scheme. Students buy their books, pay 15 to have them digitized, then return the books for the refund while still keeping the digital copy. Now I just have to get my hands on the book digitizers that Google is using. Probably not the most legal idea but I bet you it would work.
i would be suprised if someone isnt doing that allready. but i guess corner the market in your own uni. its always good to make some booz money
I've been lucky, my professors have always been strait with me over what textbooks I really need for the class, and which ones are a crock of **** that the department decides we need.... I usually email them as soon as they are confirmed as my teacher, ask them whether I can use an older edition (usually about $30 cheaper), I shop around, avoid "special" school editions like the plague, buy from friends, rent, borrow from the library, and share with others.... I usually don't pay over $300 for a full course load (12-15 credits).
Unfortunately though, the problem is that all of our homework is assigned from the books that the teacher is using and that always happens to be the latest and greatest version required by the department.
You could always just steal the lecturers copy. That way you get the book, and teach them a lesson. US colleges sound nightmarish at times by comparison with uni here. We had a mini-rebellion in a maths course I was doing last semester when a lecturer wanted to do problems out of a book instead of printing off sheets for us.
Last semester cost me about 200. Next semester should cost about half of that. You're getting ripped off man
Everyone at the US universities is getting ripped off unless your professor prefers the open source teachings available online. So far out of my 84credit hours taken I have only had 1 teacher like that.
I go to a school which is ranked in the top 10 in the country for affordability. It is $145.67 per credit hour. a standard load is 12 credit hours, this semester I am taking 19. it is about $2000/semester Thankfully I have a scholarship that pays $95 per credit hour. Other states average $300-$500 at public institutions. Private is about $1000/credit hour.
Damn. I'm glad I'm in Canada. The government helps a lot. Immigrants that comes to my Uni and don't have Canadian nationality pay 6500$ per semester hah edit: just double checked and it's 6659,00 $ for a 12 credits semester (a class is 3 to 4 credits. Most are 4)
Well i was once upon a time planning on going to McMaster (I have US, Canadian, and British Citizenship) but slacking off in Highschool and then buying a house with the gov't dangling 8 grand in front of me in return for staying in the house 3 years dampened that. So in the end I ended up transferring from my local POS uni to the top ranked one in Florida.
