Book prices are just ridiculous. $200 for an Accounting book? $150 for a govt book? Seriously, I have the luxury of not having to worry about money, but to those that have to fork out half a grand on books for one semester, that's a bigger scam than health insurance.
Who are you telling? That's one of the chief complaints of students each semester. Buy online, I even have professors that tell their students to do so. http://www.addall.com This semester my books would have cost $800 at the local and campus bookstores but luckily online prices reduced that to just under $300.
Always buy books online. You save tons of money and it's not even funny. I found a book that was $80 new at UH for 6 bucks used online. Good stuff!
Adding to the buy online tip, check if you can get by with a previous edition. You'll be able to get used copies of those for 1/2 the price of the newest edition used. Many times, the professor won't change the curriculum for several semesters, so the old edition is just as good as the new. And he/she should be able to let you know that ahead of time.
also depending on the class sometime the profs have a textbook on reserve at the library you can check out and make any photocopies of. for one of my calc classes i didnt buy the book i used an old book my cousin had for the same class 4 years earlier, same material just different problems. i just photocopied the HW assignments from the library copy and took any notes note in my book from there. i think the entire quarter's worth of copies cost me like 5-6 dollars. also we traded books with one another. a lot of people in the same major have to take the same classes but during different quarters so if i took econ 101 in the fall and my friend took it in the winter i would give him my book in exchange for his econ 105 book which he took in the fall and i would be taking now. there are ways to get around the high costs but textbook prices are ridiculous.
Half.com is where i purchase all my text books. After i'm done with the book, i just resell on the same site for the same price or in some cases more.
I've had professors when I was in college who would make their own textbook (basically a Kinkos job) and then change a page or two every semester, so that you were forced to buy their book since you could never find it online. I wound up paying $100 for a 35 page assembly programming textbook.
Those guys I really hate! I carry a personal vendetta against those clowns all semester. They cost at least 80$, nobody buys them back, its horrible. Facebook, Amazon, Ebay, thank god for those guys.
it is rediculous... i just bought my EMT book for 83 dollars..... when a week ago it cost 60... i couldnt get it online cause i needed it for 2maro (my other copy got stolen) insane rip off
This is true when you buy AND sell online. Over the summer I bought two books one costs $27 and the other cost $40. Used them from May to August and I sold both books back online for $50 each for a $33 profit, not too bad. Also, if you can buy international editions. Same information but usually the book is paperback but the price is like 1/4 to 3/4 less.
As long as the masses buy at inflated prices, the prices will remain inflated. The only solution is for the masses to rebel. I fully endorse the pirating of college text materials. All that crap could and should be downloadable as a PDF file. Only through this mass rebellion will change be invoked. Boston F**king Tea Party
I've got to stop procrastinating and get into stuff like this. I always wait until the last minute and have to rush to the bookstore. textbooktorrents.com isn't a bad place to check out.
In more than half my classes it turned out I didn't even need the book. In those cases I might have opened the book once or twice the entire semester.
When I was researching some grad schools, I found this teacher at San Diego State who teaches their jazz improvisation course. There are 4 undergrad classes and a grad class (Improv I, II, III, IV, V). The guy wrote ONE book, chopped it up into 5 bits, and charges $100 for each one! So by the time your done, each student has spent $500 for basically one book. They could have made just one book that you'd use throughout but that would be too convenient and cost efficient.
