College Textbook Madness

Today I went in to the local college textbook store to pick up a book for my brother who is taking a math class. So I walk in and ask the girl working the counter for the book so she gets it and rings me up a total of 87BUCKS!!!!!!!!!! I asked her to double check and she did and said that was correct, then I asked if they had any used books of course the answer was no. I mean come on we are talking about a pre-algebra math book here nothing more!!!! So I pay the tab quite grudgingly I might addand she tells me its a no return policy an I'm like whoa wait a minuet here let me see this book. So she pulls it out and I look and see why it is a no return, All it is is a freakin bunch of papers that you have to put into a binder THATS IT!!!!! nothing more no spine no nothing to hold it togather, which now means that if you dont already have a 3 ring binder you have to by one to keep the book in order. All it is is wrapped togather in plastic with a piece of paper that reads no return if unwrapped, so basicly if you take the class you have to pay this ridiculos amount for the book that you are going to only use one semester and you cannot even sale it back at the end. so it is pointless. I cannot believe the prices and the ridiculousness of the whole situation. The general Ed books are more than the books you need for your classes that are required for your major and at least you can look back on those in the future, but a math book?? come on youll never use it agian and you pay an arm and a leg for it somethin is skrewie here. just so flabberghasted i had to sound off, Thank you ATS for the Rant forum

College is a scam - just look at the number of barely functional people coming out of them. The educational system was designed for a different era and never adapted. The loss of focus on practical skill sets, outside of engineering fields (and inside some of them) has left us with a lot of people that know how to make frappuccinos and little else.

reply to post by JROCK2527

you can rent online or buy used very cheap! I just bought a sociology book for 19.00 fraudulent reserve notes!!! Also craigslist is an option

reply to post by JROCK2527


I am taking 17 credits this semester and my books rang up to the sum of $732.00...imagine that...it's sad but there are other options.

Purchasing books used from an on-line source is much cheaper and usually shipping is with in three days...so that is an option...down fall is selling them back to the university...in some cases they won't take them back.

I am in agreement though with it being scandalous...something doesn't seem right for certain!

Just wait, at my Community College Calculus books are over $200 and if you go to a real school think about selling your stereo. I have a couple shelves of text books that cost me well over $2000 that are just collecting dust. Last semesters books cost just under $700 for 5 classes, When I went to go sell them back I was offered less than $100. I figured I might as well keep them for reference of if a friend needs em. The best way to make your money back is to hope they are using that text again next year and sell it to someone who is taking the class. I almost made my money back on my Mandarin books that way. However, for books that are all worksheets I dont think my advice below will help, but for regular text books its great. Not sure if its kosher though,

A somewhat time consuming way around that is utilizing the schools library.
If you have a digital video camera (the higher resolution the better) and preferably a tripod you can save a lot of money.
Every college library I have been to has at least one copy of each text book that you can check out but cant leave with.
You can set up your camera on a tripod and have it look at the book, I have found that using the Negative setting works really well for trying to take pictures of print, since most cameras arent really designed to focus on lines of text. Making the text white and the background black works well for documents.
set your camera to record then turn the pages one by one. In a couple minutes you will have the entire book on video. Then put that video on your computer and use any video editing software and you can go through frame by frame and save each page as an image, then you can put all those images together in a PDF, then you can put that PDF on a laptop or PDA or Ipad or anything and you have the book. you can even print out pages if you need to. Takes a couple hours of your life and you need some hardware/software to do it, but it will save tons of money.

reply to post by AllUrChips


their scam is tho they only use that one book and they are all in the book a la carte form so there are no used books, every student buys a book every semester and they cant sell it back.

reply to post by ararisq


But I can make a damn good Frappucino!

But your point is valid.

Our school does book rentals, see if they do that. If he has financial aid they won't charge him for the books, it will be automatically taken out. But, he has to be the one to pick it up. If I paid for all my books this semester, it would be close to the 900's, Most I've spent was half that.350 for books, out of pocket 250 for lab materials.

I don't really see what the problem is with a University buying the books for their students and using them for years or is the field of mathematics advancing at such a rapid pace that they books must be updated each and every year?

If only universities and colleges had people intelligent enough to write words on paper and bind them together -- oh wait, no nevermind...

Havent you seen the College Conspiracy Doc yet??

This is done on purpose, to keep money rolling in to the fat cats...

reply to post by jerryznv


you got books plus tuition plus all of those other bogus fees that the College likes to throw in on top of all of it and financial aid helps but not too much and with all of the cuts they are backed up 6-8 weeks so that is why i am having to buy his books for him. he says he will pay me back fo that and gas money that i give him but that is if he gets enough from financial aid. it's a scam to suck money out of people!

reply to post by Smiddy


that is a good idea there but he dosent have a video camera haha so thats out but good idea maybe itll help someone else whos strugglin thanx for the reply

Yeah, tell me about it... once I waited until the class had already started to textbook shop and my spanish book was $600. For that price, I was thinking it ought to be embossed in gold. Then I had a memory lapse and left it outside to get rained on. Damn near cried! Messed up so bad can't resell it.

Lessons I've learned, always shop around and shop early. Don't study when drinking beer and forgetful. Always take very good care of textbooks such as put protective cover on and don't write with permanent ink in it.

Buying used ones on ebay is also good but selling on there not so much. Selling em back to the campus book store they don't generally pay up well either.

reply to post by JROCK2527


I know that our financial refund are cut September 21st...but in the mean time it is all out of pocket...my books where charged to my account and deducted from my financial aid...but for the average Joe that is not a full time student...it gets costly for sure.

Hopefully your friend is honest and sincere in paying you back and in that case...you have done a good deed for your friend...regardless of how scandalous the system is. I commend you for that!

don't worry


they stick it to you with the high prices for something not even close too that value?


you thank your self for piracy

download, copy , scan , savings

reply to post by JROCK2527


I don't think I ever used textbooks for college, majority of the time we do not even use them for our purposes. I think class notes are more than enough, but that's just me lol.

reply to post by Manhater


ya so does this one but that course book isnt one of the ones that is avaliable to rent along with most of the other General ed books

reply to post by JROCK2527


Yeah, it's a total scam. Some professors even get kick-backs for requiring the newest edition every year, so you can't even use the previous year's edition.

I was poor as can be in college, so I would buy the books, spend a day at a copy store, and just xerox every page. It took a long time, but then I would just return the book for a refund and tell them I had dropped the class. Saved thousands of dollars.

Sounds as though he could have easily hooked up with a group of kids, bought one copy and printed the rest.
The savings would have been staggering.

reply to post by ararisq


agreed, this is a JC but still same thing, their just out to make the money off of those who want to better themselves