why is college so expensive?

[OLS]

Books.....the world's largest scam. It is crooked from every angle. New they rape you.
Buying your used "new" books, they treat them like they are useless and pay you accordingly.
For the next sucker, suddenly your old "useless" books are worth 80% of their original new cost. I can still
remember my Mom holding back the bile, tears and curses when she paid those bills. Thank goodness for
the little the USAF gave me.

[Devanmc]

Originally Posted by OLS

Books.....the world's largest scam. It is crooked from every angle. New they rape you.
Buying your used "new" books, they treat them like they are useless and pay you accordingly.
For the next sucker, suddenly your old "useless" books are worth 80% of their original new cost. I can still
remember my Mom holding back the bile, tears and curses when she paid those bills. Thank goodness for
the little the USAF gave me.

same here, i thought the 500 the GI gave me would be enough. guess not

damn *****es...

[kaisersozei]

Originally Posted by OLS

Books.....the world's largest scam. It is crooked from every angle. New they rape you.
Buying your used "new" books, they treat them like they are useless and pay you accordingly.
For the next sucker, suddenly your old "useless" books are worth 80% of their original new cost. I can still
remember my Mom holding back the bile, tears and curses when she paid those bills. Thank goodness for
the little the USAF gave me.

My local paper had an article on a new twist on this now. Some colleges are requiring students to register for electronic copies of these books, instead of going the old hardback route. It's kind of like registering software, though--1 ID per student per enrolled class. The books are available in pdf or eReader format. Sounds cool & easy, right?

The bad news is that there is no price discount for the text, and once you activate the code, you can't transfer the e-copy. So, no reselling, no used book discount, etc. Seems like another scam.


Here's the link, it's more of an opinion piece but it kind of gets the point across:

http://www2.richmond.com/news/2011/j...ks-ar-1083940/

[Old Sailor]

Try and pay that over here.....more like double the $$$$$ for that many!

[kelmac07]

Isn't your GI Bill paying for this?

[Devanmc]

Originally Posted by kelmac07

Isn't your GI Bill paying for this?

thats the sad part, my 500 per semester for books didnt cover this. but yes its paying tuition and most of the dorm room.

[maninblack]

I guess that is a bright spot then.

[Devanmc]

yeah 9k per-semester is paid for

[357]

The more I read about the current state of American universities the more I'm convinced it's not much more than a ponzi scheme.

[M1903A1]

Originally Posted by 357

The more I read about the current state of American universities the more I'm convinced it's not much more than a ponzi scheme.

^^^ What he said.

[sikk50]

My first semester I paid as much for books as for classes ($1500). The only reason it wasn't like that other semesters was they allowed us to use e books and CSU tuition went through the roof. My last semesters tuition cost me twice as much as my first semester! I graduated in December, but word is it went up another good chunk before spring semester.

[cricky101]

There were always a couple copies in the library for all of my classes. Couldn't check them out, but could go sit there and read for free or photocopy needed pages for a few cents/page.

[Ismith75]

Haha I feel your pain brotha, just spent 500 on my finance book

[357]

I don't get why all college books, and high school books for that matter, aren't electronic. I mean Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440. Do you think after nearly 700 years we could move on to another form of media? Perhaps one that is free to distribute?

I'm not suggesting we do away with copyrights, just the bulk of the cost which is printing and distribution.

[Subvet642]

Originally Posted by 357

I don't get why all college books, and high school books for that matter, aren't electronic. I mean Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440. Do you think after nearly 700 years we could move on to another form of media? Perhaps one that is free to distribute?

I'm not suggesting we do away with copyrights, just the bulk of the cost which is printing and distribution.

Once the format becomes obsolete, the electricity goes out, the battery dies, you drop your reader, or whatever; then where are you? Books are already perfect the way they are, and require nothing else in order to read. All electronic media requires hardware, software and power support in order to function. A book requires only itself.

[loki]

Originally Posted by Subvet642

Once the format becomes obsolete, the electricity goes out, the battery dies, you drop your reader, or whatever; then where are you? Books are already perfect the way they are, and require nothing else in order to read. All electronic media requires hardware, software and power support in order to function. A book requires only itself.

you can misplace a book, you can get it wet, books become obsolete and are more expensive to change leading to fewer changes and they are all but unsearchable. Books are dead tech, it's time to move into another format.

[Subvet642]

Originally Posted by loki

you can misplace a book, you can get it wet, books become obsolete and are more expensive to change leading to fewer changes and they are all but unsearchable. Books are dead tech, it's time to move into another format.

You can misplace a reader, it can get wet, dropped, corrupted by a virus or destroyed by EMP. Books are indeed searchable; it's called an index. If you lose a book, it's one book; if you lose a reader, you lose all your "books". If you drop a reader, it's toast. I wonder how old the oldest surviving e-text is. The Dead Sea Scrolls are about 2000 years old. Does anybody expect any electronic text to survive that long?

[loki]

Originally Posted by Subvet642

You can misplace a reader, it can get wet, dropped, corrupted by a virus or destroyed by EMP. Books are indeed searchable; it's called an index. If you lose a book, it's one book; if you lose a reader, you lose all your "books". If you drop a reader, it's toast. I wonder how old the oldest surviving e-text is. The Dead Sea Scrolls are about 2000 years old. Does anybody expect any electronic text to survive that long?

I can count on one had the number of times I've damaged a piece of electiontics to the point they needed repaired, it's one, and the number of times I've lost one is never. I'm not going to argue this with you because there's no reason to. you like books and I prefer ereaders. not a big deal in the grand scheme of the board. have a good weekend mate.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by loki

you can misplace a book, you can get it wet, books become obsolete and are more expensive to change leading to fewer changes and they are all but unsearchable. Books are dead tech, it's time to move into another format.

Aren't all these true for electronic devices as well? Not a good counter-argument.

[sikk50]

Originally Posted by 357

I don't get why all college books, and high school books for that matter, aren't electronic. I mean Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440. Do you think after nearly 700 years we could move on to another form of media? Perhaps one that is free to distribute?

I'm not suggesting we do away with copyrights, just the bulk of the cost which is printing and distribution.

My last semester they had just started offering most books in electronic forms. I got one book like that bc it was a ton cheaper, but I discovered I prefer to have a hard copy. Highlighting and flipping pages checking you're scribbled margin notes is a lot more effective, IMHO, on a hard copy than an electronic one.