Here is a Student Who Has Beaten the High Cost ($150) of Textbooks
This was reported on November 7, 2006
Rob Christensen attends California State University at Humboldt. He refuses to pay $150 per textbook.
He is a senior.
Last year, Christensen said, he borrowed a psychology text from his university library and kept it all semester. It dawned on him that the fines (which turned out to be $8) would be less than the price (around $40).Christensen also has borrowed volumes from friends, split book costs with classmates and occasionally skipped buying expensive texts, hoping to get by without doing all the reading. He often shops for discounts online, sometimes snaring older editions or versions that aren't packaged with software or study guides that raise the cost.
Old textbooks are as good as new ones. The information rarely changes much. Lower division basics stay the same.
Don't buy textbooks art the college bookstore unless there is no option.
Textbooks are overpriced cash cows. A book that costs about $5 to print in runs of 100,000 sells for $150. It's ridiculous.
Students are catching on.
ago, 43% of the students surveyed by the National Assn. of College Stores indicated that they "always purchase required textbooks." Last fall the figure sank to 35%.UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian recalls that when he started teaching in 1992, "there was never any question" about purchasing texts. "Now, I receive literally dozens of questions about whether the book is 'really needed.' ".
Still, students spend almost $1,000 a year on books.
They can order from overseas websites: cheaper foreign editions. This is discriminatory pricing.
Discriminatory pricing is a standard indicator of monopoly. Why play the monopolists' game?