College text books ... cost more and more .... now a fund raising request by college.

[am1]

I eventually stopped buying the textbooks I would not use or need. Figured why waste money.

 

[remowidget]

I think it will take legislation to make colleges move past textbooks. They make too much money.

There is no reason that public universities and k-12 couldn't create their own material and do it over the internet. It should be done as a Nationwide system.

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[clifffaith]

I took a class at UCLA that required half a dozen paperbacks in addition to a text book. I recall spending the first week and weekend of that quarter reading and taking notes from the paperbacks and then returning them as new on Monday morning. I believe it was a history class, and the six extra books were to give color and a feel for the era.

The last class I ever sat in was in my early thirties when I thought I'd go through UCLA's interior design program. We owned (and still do) a window coverings business and I thought I'd broaden the scope of my business. First class (in the evening) was an art history class with a $100 textbook. SOB teaching the class wanted us to buy a second book to cut up for a scrapbook we'd refer to the rest of our professional lives (he proudly held up his own well worn scrapbook) and scrapbook was part of our grade. This was a year or two before I saw my first color Xerox, and well before everyone's home printer spit out color copies. Returned the one textbook I bought and never went back. Firstly I couldn't imagine cutting up a brand new book, but more importantly I was working fifteen hours a day, including all weekend, and studying for a class was one thing, but making a scrapbook was not going to be added to my list of things to do.

 

[ottawasquaw]

Maybe they should raise their taxes- Tee Hee......

I'm a Hoosier. We have always had "book rental fees" in the state of Indiana. I may stand corrected on the actual term as my kids are grown and mostly attended parochial schools. I remember my parents paying the fee. It felt like a bargain for the few semesters my son attended public high school.

It seems like an equitable solution. Even if taxes were raised to cover the book fee, there are other costs to raising kids and sending them to school. I guess in Indiana, we feel like parents should have some skin in the game! There's always lots of carping about taxes and schools, especially by taxpayers without students.

Regarding the OT, *eyeroll*

 

[wackymother]

Maybe they should raise their taxes- Tee Hee......

New Jersey has some of the best public schools in the country. We're happy to pay our taxes to support them.

 

[Timeshare Von]

They should do away with the book industry and go all online. One of the "books" my daughter had to purchase last year was like a ream of paper from the photocopy shop. Textbooks are such a racket.

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Some schools (like University of Phoenix) have gone to that business model . . . it's BIG BUSINESS for them!

 

[Timeshare Von]

First week of school .. brown paper bags, tape and scissors ... homework to keep the books nice.

Yep, that is what we did throughout school!

 

[Janann]

I pay between $1000 and $2000 each semester for my son. His major is finance and minor in advertising. I buy the books used. This is such a huge racket

Yikes. My daughter recently finished her undergrad degree in the sciences, and after the first couple years of school her book expenses were very low. She rented some from Amazon, and paid cash for some from friends. Some of her materials were online, and the school makes a big deal about low book costs. It turned out that it was pretty much true.

 

[bogey21]

I pay between $1000 and $2000 each semester for my son. His major is finance and minor in advertising. I buy the books used. This is such a huge racket

Compare the to when I went to college (graduated in 1968). My major was Accounting and my minor was Finance. My tuition was $279 per quarter (3 quarters = 2 semesters) and this included lending me text books.

George

 

[WinniWoman]

New Jersey has some of the best public schools in the country. We're happy to pay our taxes to support them.

I was implying that in NJ you have high taxes (as we do here in NY) which is why textbooks are included, whereas Florida has low taxes, which is maybe why they are not included. So maybe if the taxes were higher the textbooks would be included. That said, I have relatives whose kids go to school in Florida and they seem to be doing just fine.

 

[spirits]

In Edmonton, Canada, our high school students pay a rental fee.....but that does not stop them from losing or destroying books. Trying to collect for damages is not always easy. Not sure what the answer is.....when I first started teaching, there was a book room and if a student lost a book, we would just go and get another one....no questions asked......money was flowing like milk and honey in the early 80's. Not anymore.
Having said that....we had to buy our textbooks when I was in high school in the 70's. Money was tight and we looked after those books because we could sell them at the end of the year. There was a used textbook store right across from all the high schools and they did a great business. That was just the way it was.....noone complained....at least I never heard parents or other students complain.
So.....over 50 years I have seen students buy their texts, have them given for free and now rental. All 3 systems had their advantages and disadvantages and I think they are a reflection of the society around them.
Today, higher education has become something that is getting to be out of reach of the average family. Income has been stagnant for many years and online learning and privatization of education are two forces that will play a larger role in the education model. As a teacher who is ending her career, I am hopeful that students will still want to learn, teachers will want to teach and society will provide solutions to answer some of the problems we face. I am excited to see education change and take advantage of the opportunities out there.

 

[WinniWoman]

I'm a Hoosier. We have always had "book rental fees" in the state of Indiana. I may stand corrected on the actual term as my kids are grown and mostly attended parochial schools. I remember my parents paying the fee. It felt like a bargain for the few semesters my son attended public high school.

It seems like an equitable solution. Even if taxes were raised to cover the book fee, there are other costs to raising kids and sending them to school. I guess in Indiana, we feel like parents should have some skin in the game! There's always lots of carping about taxes and schools, especially by taxpayers without students.

Regarding the OT, *eyeroll*

I think these days most parents have more than just "some" skin in the game in regards to expenses for school. Sports equipment and uniforms, school supplies, outside reading books, musical instruments, testing fees, I could go on and on. All this- and with high real estate school taxes anyway here in NY at least.

And yeah- after 40 years of paying outrageous taxes- property and school (separate bills in NY the welfare state)- I do complain about it as they go up every year as our income has remained stagnant and our only child has been out of the house for 12 years. So here is my eye roll

 

[vacationhopeful]

My 'finishing school' college in Florida (attended for my first 2 years of college) was routinely dissed by my Princeton U brother and his Princeton U GF. My 3rd year of college had me attending Rutgers University about 90 miles from my parents' home. After a couple of weeks at Rutgers, I notice things moved and missing from my home BDR closet shelves. I was missing my Samuelson Economics book ... a used book I bought for a Florida class the prior year with 1st student's name and now mine written in it.

Asked my sisters and my dad, if they had borrowed it. Asked my mom, who had been upstairs in MY bedroom.

After my asking the same questions several different ways ... my mom recalled by brother's girlfriend who attended Princeton U .. a year younger then me ... had stopped by, to fetch a book from his bedroom. He was 3 years OLD than her... had also attending Princeton ,,, as an enginering major.. And the book she STOLE was mine from in my bedroom in my parents' house. So on my way back to Rutgers ... I stopped by Princeton U, found her dorm, knocked on the door to her suite. She was talking to my brother in North Datoka where he was living ... looked around her shared bedroom, found MY book with MY class work (graded papers in it) and walked out saying .. "stay out of my xxxxing bedroom back home, YOU thief!"

My Rutgers dorm was about 30 minutes away ... and the floor phone was ringing off the hook for me .. Her, my brother, my parents .. demanding that I drive back to Princeton and give HER BOOK back to her ... as she had a big test in a couple of days. I told EVERYONE who continued calling, she needed to BUY herself a book instead of STEALING mine out of my bedroom back home.

My parents called and I told them, she is stealing out of your HOUSE.... my college book I paid for but how much of YOUR STUFF has she taken. And you really think I should be giving my book back to a thief? THEY DID think I should return it because SHE needed to do her homework .. I hung up on my parents.

My brother called me from ND and I told him YOU NEVER had Economics ... and that is the book Debbie stole... which I took back. And I used multiple are nicknames. Told his he was a dummy.

6 months later, they got married. I went back to college in FL ... they gave me an empty box for a hair dryer for Christmas 6 months after the wedding ... Debbie clearly said, "that was her box and she liked hers a lot... but the store had sold out of them. And she would get me one, after it got re-stocked." I said, "oh, right."

I didn't give Debbie or my brother anything as a wedding present.
Debbie never made good on my empty box Christmas present promise.
Debbie got her Princeton Degree after completing her last 2 years .. got no graduation card from me.
And 8 months after Debbie's degree, 1 months after another Xmas ... Debbie moved in with her NYC lawyer boyfriend.
And my brother paid off all their/her credit card debt and she paid for the divorice.

Karma does come around ... she and her 2nd husband had a couple of kids and she died before the kids got into elementary school .. from cancer.

PS I was an active Girl Scout thru end of my high school years. My HS years in scouting was with a troop in a nearby town .. a blue collar town. My best girlfriend's father (Pete) was an union teamster and my GS friend's father had 15+ years earlier work with Debbie's dad. Debbie's family apartment caught fire and Pete had their family move into the lower level of his split level home for almost a year until Pete & wife were ASKED them strongly to LEAVE. When the engagement anouncement made the newspapers ... my GF mother & husband (Pete) expressed their concerns ... seems Debbie's parents were role models for Debbie's (dis)Honorable acts. And I regularly had kitchen table discussions about other antics Debbie was pulling while married to my brother. Don't think Debbie had a CLUE (or would even have thought, I knew Pete's family ... who daughter was my best friend since freshman year of HS).

 

[wilma]

That said, I have relatives whos' kids go to school in Florida and they seem to be doing just fine.

I hope the Florida schools would teach the students that there is no such word/expression as whos', perhaps they would teach the correct use of whose?

 

[WinniWoman]

I hope the Florida schools would teach the students that there is no such word/expression as whos', perhaps they would teach the correct use of whose?

LOL! My bad. Brain is deteriorating. Thanks for the correction.

 

[jehb2]

The exact same textbooks they sell in the US you can buy in India for a fraction of the price. Of course you have to figure out how to do it. One guy started a business buying the books in India and shipping them to students in the US. The postal book rate is not expensive. A textbook company actually sued him saying that the books were solely for the buyer's use (Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc). The textbook company eventually lost.

 

[FLDVCFamily]

I pay between $1000 and $2000 each semester for my son. His major is finance and minor in advertising. I buy the books used. This is such a huge racket

It's such a scam. At the end of the semester those books are worth little to nothing, or you feel like you need to "hold onto" the books even though you're not likely to ever need them again and then when you realize that you don't they aren't worth anything. When my sister was in law school 15 years ago I went with her to buy books and it was like a grand. I had the idea to write down the ISBN numbers (this was before smartphone cameras were a thing) and then buy the books off half.com. It was so much cheaper! I'm not sure it's even an option to do that anymore now...so many "school specific" editions seem to be published now. It's awful...what a racket.

 

[vacationhopeful]

First "request for text book funds" email on Saturday.

Got 2nd email request today ... Wednesday ... 4 days gone by. This request starts off with they have raised $3000 to date.

Their plead is the average text book costs $125 and the average student spends $500 per semester on text books.

Not impressed ... I wonder what the average cell phone bill is for each student attending the university.

Trade that contract smart phone in for a basic Tracfone ... gone are the $150+ monthly cell phone will for a $10 Tracfone. ($140 x 12)/ 125= 13.44 text book paid for. $125 text book cost. 4 books per semester @ $125 each is 3 FULL semesters of PAID books instead of feeding the corporate coffers of the cell phone companies.

 

[geekette]

First "request for text book funds" email on Saturday.

Got 2nd email request today ... Wednesday ... 4 days gone by. This request starts off with they have raised $3000 to date.

Their plead is the average text book costs $125 and the average student spends $500 per semester on text books.

Not impressed ... I wonder what the average cell phone bill is for each student attending the university.

Trade that contract smart phone in for a basic Tracfone ... gone are the $150+ monthly cell phone will for a $10 Tracfone. ($140 x 12)/ 125= 13.44 text book paid for. $125 text book cost. 4 books per semester @ $125 each is 3 FULL semesters of PAID books instead of feeding the corporate coffers of the cell phone companies.

Yeah, really. I don't recall sending out donation requests when I was a poor college student. Instead, I worked, 3 jobs at one point, and still managed 3.6 GPA.

People that can't afford college expenses should maybe reset expectations vs expecting generosity of others to float cost. Was it somehow a surprise that there would be books and fees? I paid for my own schooling and am better for it. I will not be depriving anyone of building character by giving a handout.

 

[bogey21]

Yeah, really. I don't recall sending out donation requests when I was a poor college student. Instead, I worked, 3 jobs at one point, and still managed 3.6 GPA.

People that can't afford college expenses should maybe reset expectations vs expecting generosity of others to float cost. Was it somehow a surprise that there would be books and fees? I paid for my own schooling and am better for it. I will not be depriving anyone of building character by giving a handout.

Agree. I paid my own way too.

George

 

[vacationhopeful]

By the speed of this second request (just 4 days after the 1st email), I beginning to believe this a summer intern's project to grow themselves a paid (fund raising) position with this small private university. Personally, I would have been very humbled by the very low dollar amount raised ... and to inexperience by not knowing, most people don't response to a short email request. Most students have a layered financial aid package ... many do NOT prudently choose basics only, but the fluffy and nice.

I choose a dorm without A/C while at that central Florida college. I had a window air conditioner in my parent's home up north. I choose a "shared suite bath" where 4 students lived (and no shower in the tub or in the dorm). I did NOT have a car or bike ... I walked until I had saved money from working during my junior year of college in NJ.

I can understand WHY some costs for a college education have increased ... who lives in Florida today without air conditioning? Who depends on public transportation or walking for MONTHS at a time in the suburbs? Who would live anywheres without a shower .. only a tub? Most kids today can share a bath with 1 sibling .. try sharing with 3 strangers. All these HIGHER standards for college living, do cost money. So much money, the college torn my old dorm DOWN .. else they would also have had to ADD at least 4 elevators (2 to each section of the building) for ADHD requirements plus change MANY of those older bathroom plus install central air thru out the 1900 era building plus replace all those BIG, TALL, WIDE windows over 100 years old. Yes, they tore it down .. a vacant area of grass between the academic buildings and the dining hall.

But if I read that they have ANY PLANS to build a NEW BOOKSTORE there... I will print off this thread and remind them, the historic fountain in the Palm Court quad is a crossroads between library, administration building, classrooms and rally public garden ... where NOTHING is a store front or selling kiaosk .. never should a selling vendor work ... so nor should a cash register be rung for tee-shirts, candy, funny hats or even the selling of $100+ books ... as the 4th wall of our QUAD.

 

[ottawasquaw]

I think these days most parents have more than just "some" skin in the game in regards to expenses for school. Sports equipment and uniforms, school supplies, outside reading books, musical instruments, testing fees, I could go on and on. All this- and with high real estate school taxes anyway here in NY at least.

I was referring to the responsibility of taking care of school property. The books go home and need to taken care of and not damaged so that they can be used again next year. In addition to paying a book fee, there's the list of school supplies needed.