$130 for 1 stupid textbook vent!

[ugadog99]

We rented from bookrenters.com last semester and this semester used chegg. As long as we can find the books, we'll be renting. It saved us A LOT!!

 

[NMAmy]

The worst part for me is that I work at a college and order textbooks so it's not like I'm a stranger to any of this. DD goes to a college that has their own bookstore so they give the absolute minimum info on textbooks--no isbn, no edition, no year. Since dd was home for semester break (2000 miles away from school), I couldn't even send her over to the store to check for the ISBN's.

 

[NatashaDisneyCM]

yah, my text books run about 950-1000 each semester! so I would love a book for 150!! lol I always register mine with the bookstore online, and if I decided to return them, which most I do not being they are all science books. You would get 10% more back.

there are ways around books, buying used, renting as someone else mentioned. but I like to keep most of mine.

 

[NatashaDisneyCM]

If they were bought within the last few weeks, you should be able to get a refund.

Be sure to email professors and ask if you can use a previous edition. I have done that before. The chapters may be in a different order, but it is usually the same information and the price is a lot cheaper.

I have also been one who copied a whole textbook. Seems extreme, but it saved me $100 that semester. I have also shared a book with a friend and we took turns using it.

Marsha

being I worked at a college bookstore, you might want to check there policy, we only let people return with in two weeks, and if it is open, forget it...you cannot return it.

 

[pearlieq]

I used old editions for all of my last two years of college. I got them free through inter-library loan and just renewed them as needed.

You can use the older editions a lot more often than you think. Unless it's a technology book where the software/code has changed or book with exercises that you'll need to do, the information is almost always the same. It might be slightly edited, re-ordered, or a footnote or two may have changed, but you'll get 99% of what you need to know in class anyway.

I can't believe the racket around college texts. I wasn't willing to participate anymore.

 

[jme829]

DD16 just got accepted to the youth options program here where she takes a college course for dual credit. She went yesterday for orientation and I was dreading the book fee (wasn't sure how it worked, since the high school pays for the college course)..

Was HAPPILY surprised to see that her college of choice (Univ. Wisconsin/River Falls) does NOT charge for textbooks!!!! You check them out of the textbook room, and return them at the end of the semester (like a library book!)...the fees are included in tuition (which is pretty low anyways!) once she starts as an actual degree seeking student..

So when she starts as an actual college freshman in sept/2011 that is one less thing we have to worry about!

 

[Micca]

You know those unscrupulous people who sell brand new movies on dvd on the street corners? You gotta wonder why they aren't in the textbook business. Not that I would encourage anyone to obtain illegally reproduced materials, just sayin'

 

[Mandychelle79]

If you rent, you can't highlight or mark in the book.

I got my books on Barnes and Noble's website and paid 4 dollars more than what a used would have cost me on halfprice books.

Last semester I had over 1000 into books, uniforms and required supplies. That was for 1 class. Yes 1 class. Im a nursing major and already have the non nursing classes done.

 

[Golf4food]

I played for a textbook company once. They hired our brass quintet to play at their annual conference being held at a Four Seasons on the beach in south Florida because there was a brass instrument on the cover of the new Chemistry book. Paid us well, fed us (hotel chef and French pastry chef), then tipped us each $20 cash when we left. A few hours work.

And that is why we all pay out the wazoo for textbooks, ladies and gentlemen.

And don't forget the professors who get kickbacks for using new editions, or perhaps where a contributing writer to a new addition who want higher sales, etc.

It's all a mess. The only ones losing are the parents and students who have to pay for all of it.

 

[DizBelle]

Holy Craptastic Batman!!!

 

[mamacatnv]

DS uses half.com, ebay and Amazon - I have not heard of Chegg.com but I will forward to him.

His Univ. has a habit of bundling books so that researching the ISBN numbers is tricky if not impossible since the bundle is custom with its own number.

DS pays for all his own books, we found that really motivated him to go on the hunt for a good deal. Starving students are remarkable at borrowing books, finding cheap books and getting good deals when it is coming out of their wallets

Textbooks were a racket 25 years ago when I was in college, I don't think all that much has changed.

 

[Handbag Lady]

Textbooks were/are a total racket!

Back when I was in college, the professors wrote most of the textbooks we were required to buy for each class. Each year, they'd change the edition.

You'd think you could get away with buying the used older edition, but then THREE of my professors went around the room checking each book. If you had edition 21 and they were on 22, you'd be asked to either drop the class or you had to buy the new one. The reason was that, ahem, he didn't want any of us to get lost by using the wrong book.

There were SLIGHT differences to the book, but not enough to make a difference. English and History isn't like writing code for computers. Not that much happens to something that is 300 years old, you know what I mean?

 

[Sparx]

my mom doesn't buy my text books. but i just spent 100.00 on a book that we're only going to cover three chapters of.

and my university likes to get university specific books. this means NO used versions, NO sellbacks, and i can't get it anywhere but my book store.

 

[Pigeon]

I'm an academic librarian. Today was our usual first day of the semester, with hundreds of students coming to the library to see if we had their textbooks. As a rule, we don't buy textbooks, period. If you are a student, you can ask your faculty member if they can put a copy on reserve if they have an extra.

We will not get textbooks through Interlibrary Loan for students. It's just too big of a dissatisfier. In most case, you can't find the textbook at another library, and if they do have it, it gets recalled immediately and your student has to send it back just when they need it. ILL loan periods tend to only be a couple of weeks, and it can be difficult to get the books back to the loaning institution if students won't return them.

We tell students their best bet is to rent, shop around or share with a friend. Our university didn't used to publish the book list, but after a lawsuit, we do now.

The whole thing is just an incredible racket.

 

[locolala]

Ugh, yeah textbooks are psychotically expensive. I can't even sell back my books, I'll need them for reference material when I go to write my master's thesis, and I'll need to look back at certain things once I'm established in my career. It's nuts, and I hate having to pay so much

 

[stacy347]

DD16 just got accepted to the youth options program here where she takes a college course for dual credit. She went yesterday for orientation and I was dreading the book fee (wasn't sure how it worked, since the high school pays for the college course)..

Was HAPPILY surprised to see that her college of choice (Univ. Wisconsin/River Falls) does NOT charge for textbooks!!!! You check them out of the textbook room, and return them at the end of the semester (like a library book!)...the fees are included in tuition (which is pretty low anyways!) once she starts as an actual degree seeking student..

So when she starts as an actual college freshman in sept/2011 that is one less thing we have to worry about!

I wish ours would have done it this way. DD16 just started her dual credit course today. I got the paperwork from the school counselor (she was in charge of assigning all the students to the courses and took care of registration). We thought we got lucky because we found a copy of the $120 textbook that we needed for $40 on Craigslist from a local student who took the course.

So, DD texts me from class about an hour ago to tell me that the counselor wrote down the wrong course number on our registration paper and we bought the wrong book.

I pulled out the paper just to double check ~ yep, sure enough, the paper says History 250 and it's actually something like History 152. I am fuming right now.

Luckily, I bought the other one used and deeply discounted but what a hassle. DD hates being unprepared for anything in school and I could tell she was really stressing over it.

 

[Plannin'Shannon]

Be sure to email professors and ask if you can use a previous edition. I have done that before. The chapters may be in a different order, but it is usually the same information and the price is a lot cheaper.

I have also been one who copied a whole textbook. Seems extreme, but it saved me $100 that semester. I have also shared a book with a friend and we took turns using it.

Marsha

I have done both of these. More often, I will order a previous edition at a fraction of the cost. This semester, I ordered the previous edition of my BioOrganic book for $12 on Amazon; the current edition costs $170 in the bookstore. I've compared the two books. Honestly, there is no negligible difference.

 

[daughter_of_amid_chaos]

Ugh, yeah textbooks are psychotically expensive. I can't even sell back my books, I'll need them for reference material when I go to write my master's thesis, and I'll need to look back at certain things once I'm established in my career. It's nuts, and I hate having to pay so much

The books I saved from college helped immensely when I went for my Masters and now I am getting my Ph.D. Having your own library made up of your college books is incredibly helpful.

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

I feel your pain, we just paid $900 for books for my DH as he is attending a community college. I about cried. Luckily his Chemistry teacher told the class the books are so expensive to return them and go get the used older edition so that saved us $150, other wise it would have been over $1000 dollars for books.

 

[dis-happy]

The worst part for me is that I work at a college and order textbooks so it's not like I'm a stranger to any of this. DD goes to a college that has their own bookstore so they give the absolute minimum info on textbooks--no isbn, no edition, no year. Since dd was home for semester break (2000 miles away from school), I couldn't even send her over to the store to check for the ISBN's.

I believe there's some new federal textbook law coming soon that says universities have to provide this information to students. Also, try having your dd email her profs. ahead of time....my dd's college bookstore doesn't let anyone into the stacks until the day before classes start, but the profs. are more than willing to email her the info ahead of time.