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[entremet]

Every cost associated with higher learning has steadily increased over the past decade, but none more so than college textbooks. While tuition increased by 63% between 2006 and 2016, and housing costs increased by 50%, the cost of textbooks went up by 88%, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The University System of Maryland recently announced that it would be giving out 21 “mini-grants” to seven community colleges and five public four-year schools. The grants will go to “faculty who are adopting, adapting or scaling the use of OER [open educational resources] in Fall 2017 through high-enrollment courses where quality OER exists,” according to the announcement.

Open educational resources are materials like electronic textbooks that typically use licenses that are far less restrictive than traditional, copyrighted textbooks. That means they can be limitlessly duplicated and distributed to students, and even revised to suit the needs of a given class. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a pioneer of this approach when it began making its course materials open to the public in 2001, using Creative Commons licenses and borrowing the ethos of open source programming.

Although the mini-grants are only $500 to $2,500 each, the effort in Maryland is expected to save 8,000 students up to $1.3 million in the Fall 2017 semester alone. That’s a significant amount, but just a drop in the bucket of what students in the state spend on textbooks each year.

https://qz.com/962487/states-are-moving-to-cut-college-costs-by-introducing-open-source-textbooks/

I can't believe the textbook racket is still a thing in the ebook age?

Nice to see pushback on this garbage industry.

 

[Omegasquash]

Nice to see pushback on this garbage industry.

Amen to that. It's been a racket for a long time.

 

[entremet]

Amen to that. It's been a racket for a long time.

What's crazy is that they keep raising prices! What the heck? 88 percent. Yeez.

 

[Goro Majima]

I loved my accounting courses that were like "just use the old edition that costs a dollar, the differences are minimal".

Then there were other courses with some bullshit about charging $150 for a xerox'd copy in a three ring binder. And it was material unique to our university so you couldn't buy another copy anywhere but through the school.

 

[Tom Nook]

I bought "International" textbooks, some much cheaper.

 

[outunderthestars]

This story pops up every few years, yet I have not seen any classes in my school switch to open source texts.

 

[Tom Nook]

I loved my accounting courses that were like "just use the old edition that costs a dollar, the differences are minimal".

Then there were other courses with some bullshit about charging $150 for a xerox'd copy in a three ring binder. And it was material unique to our university so you couldn't buy another copy anywhere but through the school.

UGH, my old professors require us to buy that stuff. I would find someone who took the class last semester and I would borrow it.

 

[Kurdel]

College professors profusely sweating.

 

[entremet]

This story pops up every few years, yet I have not seen any classes in my school switch to open source texts.

The cartel is heavily entrenched.

 

[bobbychalkers]

In my later years of college I pirated my textbook and convinced my professors that I bought the PDF and they let me use my phone in class. Not ashamed of it one bit. When it comes down to buying a book or having enough money for gas and food, I'll choose the latter every time.

 

[Dynomutt]

Stopped purchasing certain books after finding out my University kept PDF versions on file in the Libraries digital repository. Every semester would find out what books I needed and would print it off at the local copy center. $20 vs. $90+ is a no brainer. Even sold some for $10 bucks!

 

[entremet]

In my later years of college I pirated my textbook and convinced my professors that I bought the PDF and they let me use my phone in class. Not ashamed of it one bit. When it comes down to buying a book or having enough money for gas and food, I'll choose the latter every time.

What about that scam of buying the book but the prof never using it lol.

Happened to me a few times lol.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I had a business ethics professor that required you to buy the newest edition of the textbook or he wouldn't issue you a test on test days. Until you proved that you owned the book, which you had to sign your name in the front cover, he denied you. The worst of it all is that my brother had taken that same class 5 years earlier than me from the same professor. I compared my 14th edition to his 9th edition...no differences. Oh, and the professor of the class wrote the book. Shocker!

I dropped the class after calling him out right in the middle of the 3rd day of classes. He lost his mind and just started shouting when I asked him to explain his own business ethics. I held up my brother's book from years earlier and asked why he felt it was ok to change an edition number and force students with financial struggles to pay over $100.

 

[Maxinas]

In my later years of college I pirated my textbook and convinced my professors that I bought the PDF and they let me use my phone in class. Not ashamed of it one bit. When it comes down to buying a book or having enough money for gas and food, I'll choose the latter every time.

I've been lucky to have several understanding professors provide pdfs from their teacher editions to the entire class. First and last time i ever fell for the college textbook scam was in my first year, $219 for a chemistry textbook + online homework bullshit that i used for 1 semester. Never again.

 

[EatinOlives]

I had a business ethics professor that required you to buy the newest edition of the textbook or he wouldn't issue you a test on test days. Until you proved that you owned the book, which you had to sign your name in the front cover, he denied you. The worst of it all is that my brother had taken that same class 5 years earlier than me from the same professor. I compared my 14th edition to his 9th edition...no differences. Oh, and the professor of the class wrote the book. Shocker!

I dropped the class after calling him out right in the middle of the 3rd day of classes. He lost his mind and just started shouting when I asked him to explain his own business ethics. I held up my brother's book from years earlier and asked why he felt it was ok to change an edition number and force students with financial struggles to pay over $100.

therockclapping.gif

What was he shouting? Curious what his garbage excuses were

 

[Xe4]

Good. If I can't rent a textbook, I buy it internationally or pirate it. Fuck textbook makers, what they put out is not worth upwards of $200.

 

[collige]

I had a business ethics professor that required you to buy the newest edition of the textbook or he wouldn't issue you a test on test days. Until you proved that you owned the book, which you had to sign your name in the front cover, he denied you. The worst of it all is that my brother had taken that same class 5 years earlier than me from the same professor. I compared my 14th edition to his 9th edition...no differences. Oh, and the professor of the class wrote the book. Shocker!

I dropped the class after calling him out right in the middle of the 3rd day of classes. He lost his mind and just started shouting when I asked him to explain his own business ethics. I held up my brother's book from years earlier and asked why he felt it was ok to change an edition number and force students with financial struggles to pay over $100.

Same thing happened to me with my Ethics of Computer Science professor except that in this case it was a digital textbook and it also used un-sourced text from Wikipedia. Ethical!

 

[RyanW]

https://qz.com/962487/states-are-moving-to-cut-college-costs-by-introducing-open-source-textbooks/

I can't believe the textbook racket is still a thing in the ebook age?

Nice to see pushback on this garbage industry.

Even then some classes at my university(and I'd imagine many others) require you to buy access codes worth $100-$200 dollars.

It was insane to me when working at a bookstore that when holding a small box the size of a book I was holding tens of thousands of dollars worth of codes

 

[gaiages]

This story pops up every few years, yet I have not seen any classes in my school switch to open source texts.

I've had one class ever that use free resources instead of the typical textbook or online codes, and it was impressive. I felt like the free resource that the class used was better than the average math course's MathLab BS too. If almost as if the free one (which was from another university) wanted you to learn instead of shelling out money for zero reason!

Speaking of, I hate how many professors seem to want to get around the whole pirating issue with the online passes and bullshit. Like I really gotta pay $100 to do my homework? :/

 

[SunDimension24]

Thank goodness, textbook prices are absurd. So glad my computer science professors went away from textbooks during my junior and senior years, the prices for books were seriously getting ridiculous.

I also hated when we needed access codes to do homework online for my biology and statistics classes and you were pretty much screwed into getting a new book or taking a chance on a used one that might still have the code and if it doesn't have to buy the code separately for $100 for a semester.

And at times the professor never used the book at all even though they tell you its required and you wasted $250 on a book you can sell back for $80 at best because a new edition came out.

 

[sixteen-bit]

That's good to hear

 

[Jeff-DSA]

therockclapping.gif

What was he shouting? Curious what his garbage excuses were

He was mostly shouting about my arrogance and assumptions. Went on an on about the time investment that he chose to spread out across years rather than charging what the book was actually worth. He accused me of being unwilling to invest in my own future and just basically ranted for 2-3 minutes for telling me that if I couldn't accept things that I was always free to leave.

The worst part about it all is that the vast majority of his textbook was nothing more than collected essays and works. I think the first two chapters were just Plato and Socrates. Seriously.

 

[Easy_D]

Fuck. Purchasing literature for Uni was the biggest fucking money sink. And then you'd only just read a couple of chapters per book, super dumb.

 

[Crayons]

I had a professor who wrote his own lab manual that was required for the class and $150 and I borrowed the manual from a friend, scanned it into a PDF, and uploaded it online

 

[Easy_D]

I had a professor who wrote his own lab manual that was required for the class and $150 and I borrowed the manual from a friend, scanned it into a PDF, and uploaded it online

Geez. We had a similar thing but his was a guide on how to properly write an essay and you only had to pay 6 euro for it.

Then we had another dude whose book was part of the class and he was all "I can hook you up with a cheaper version of the book just sign up here" lol

It was quite a discount though, so not complaining.

 

[Sephzilla]

This is why I'm happy I went to a tech school. Never ran into nearly as much of this bullshit compared to my friends who went to universities.

 

[Metalingus5150]

Always help your fellow students out with free versions.

 

[Layell]

I had a prof who had only online resources through JSTOR. No cost and was a really fun class too.Dragging books is a chore.

 

[Violence Jack]

College textbooks are a scam. It wasn't long before I started going to Chegg.com, or paid a classmate $5 to scan a Xeroxed book and give it to us on a flash drive.

 

[AP90]

Always thought the endgame would be to just have the students buy an adobe license who. Would be good throughout there education that. Charge like $10 a book and be done.

Spoiler

never did the math to see if that would be better or not however

 

[adamantypants]

I had like 3 separate engineering professors tell us to just buy old editions from eBay for like $5 and they'd post the homework questions online.

Conversely, I've heard of business classes at the same university require the newest edition of the books. Also the English 102 book was university branded, $150, and just a shrink wrapped stack of 3-hole punched paper that you were required to provide a 3-ring binder for.

 

[Hazmat]

Good. Clearly students needed to buy a new edition of a Calculus textbook because Calculus 1 changes every 3-4 years.

 

[Rentahamster]

Fuckin' good.

 

[Random Painted HIghway]

My wife's department has their own textbook for two state mandated intro courses that is used to fund grad students and dept activities. She and her colleagues write the chapters and then it can be produced more cheaply. When you see obviously not traditional text books, that could be what you're seeing.

 

[shoreu]

Good fuck pearson and all those other companies.

 

[Netprints]

Thank God the college I went to we got to get our books for free. Would have made college really expensive for me

 

[Flying Toaster]

I had an issue with a professor making a required book list and we only used 2 of the required 5 books. Started an uprising and they took a lot of heat. In the end the department bought our classes books back but it was a freaking scam.

 

[CloudyTuba]

I had an issue with a professor making a required book list and we only used 2 of the required 5 books. Started an uprising and they took a lot of heat. In the end the department bought our classes books back but it was a freaking scam.

Required texts that you never touch happen all the damn time. It's even worse when the professor lists his own book as a required text and then hardly uses it.
Yep, that happened.