College Textbooks: The Simplest Scam Ever
Mon 21 Jul 2008 – 20.08
I have often railed against the college textbook ’system’. You know what I’m talking about: the books cost a ton, you read about a third of it, and then you can’t get more than 10% back when you sell it. It doesn’t matter who makes money, the college student loses. In fact, I’ve heard that the college bookstores don’t make much, nor do the authors. So I guess the fat-cat publishers are raking it in.
The Baltimore Sun sheds some light on the subject. This in-depth article actually talks about the out-of-control micro-industry that has so many of our young student friends by the balls.
The custom-textbook business has become the fastest-growing segment of the $3.5 billion market for U.S. new college texts, comprising 12 percent of sales for 2006, the latest year for which data is available. Royalty deals generate tens of thousands of dollars for some big academic departments. The arrangements have drawn little attention, despite increasing legislative and regulatory scrutiny of the spiraling price of textbooks, which have been rising at twice the rate of inflation over the past two decades.
Yikes! Many students find workarounds to paying those high retail prices. Obviously, buying used is a good start, but I’ve found that ordering your book online from half.com, amazon.com, or textbooks.com (maybe even craig’s list or your local school paper) can be a way to save tons of money and get a book that is new or near-new. Roommates and fraternity brothers who live in close quarters can share a book for use outside of class, but this doesn’t work for engineers and other students who take open-book exams.
But students get bit especially hard when ‘custom’ books come into play. Usually written by the professor, these thin books, often spiral- or comb-bound, are sold by the bookstore solely for a certain class. They are used only at that university, for that class, with that professor, and sometimes only for that semester! All points or resale, sharing, or handing down are moot, and the students lose! Argh!
Can you tell I’m a little bitter? I decided when I left school that I would sell all my textbooks except for one on each subject — physics, calculus, thermodynamics, etc. The others got sold, many of them to some dude in a van with a barcode scanner and a cash box. I dunno what he was doing with the books, but he offered better rates than the bookstore.
Head over and read the article here »
Then grab your pitchforks and torches, we’re going to the bookstore.
posted by Scott in education, personal finance.
1 Comment | Leave a comment »
To make sure you sell your books back for the highest price, make sure to use BookScouter.com where you can compare prices from over 25 different book-buying websites. By getting prices online, you usually can sell recent textbooks for more than 50% of the new price. If you buy a used book online and then sell it for a good price, you can considerably lower your textbook costs.
Comment by Brandon on Fri 25 Jul 2008 — 22.41 |
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment