Textbooks, Part I
Posted by Ryan on July 21st, 2007.
A Utah Valley State College professor has called textbook pricing immoral, and has revised his course so that there are no textbooks needed. That’s right - a college professor has eliminated textbooks from his class. The article mentions that the Government Accountability Office has reported that textbook prices has risen double the rate of inflation, something that I find amazing. There is just no reason why they (the publishers) cannot keep the prices inline with inflation. Oh wait, that means they would have to take a cut in profits, and who wants to do that?
For the first three semesters, I bought my books at the campus bookstore. Then during the winter break last year, it hit me. Why couldn’t I just buy the books somewhere else. I checked Amazon, and bought my books from there. I saved a good amount of money, and Amazon was the place I bought the books for my summer class.
So far, I have bought the books for two of the classes I’m taking in the fall. The books for the other three classes haven’t been posted yet, but I’ll probably be buying them from Amazon as well. Below is a list of the books I have bought so far.
| Class | Book | Bkstr Used | Bkstr New | Amazon Used |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CJ 381 | Approaches to Social Research, 4th Ed | $62.75 | $83.50 | $40.11 |
| PL 101 | Trial & Death of Socrates | $4.25 | $5.50 | $4.99 |
| Communist Manifesto | $2.00 | $2.50 | $5.92 | |
| Man’s Search for Meaning (REV & UPD) | $5.25 | $6.99 | $9.75 | |
| Way to Wisdom | $12.00 | $15.95 | $11.19 |
Obviously, I wasn’t going to order the three lower cost books from Amazon - I would lose money if I did. The fourth book for the PL 101 class I could have ordered from Amazon, but didn’t. I’d just be saving a dollar, and not having to wonder if a book would get lost in shipping is worth that dollar.
By ordering Approaches to Social Research from Amazon, I was able to save over $20. I took $10 of that and bought a study guide that should be worth the money.
It should be interesting to see how much my other books cost. I just hope the professors tell the bookstore what books they want us to get so there’s enough time for me to get them from Amazon.