It's about f**king time!

Thank god someone somewhere is doing this, maybe the whole world can learn from this example... text book prices are fucking ridiculous.
 
Blackchaoshero said:
Thank god someone somewhere is doing this, maybe the whole world can learn from this example... text book prices are fucking ridiculous.
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in Sweden, all text books are free as long as you're a student. Well, that do change after a certain age, but even then you get discount most of the time. Well, to be honest I'm not sure if that changes from school to school, but all schools I ever went to have given me the books for free or a huge discount. After buying the book past-20, they paid over 50% of the total cost.

Everything in Sweden that goes beyond your family (as in, on your free time) is free in Sweden pre-20. Past 20, you get discounts etc. as long as its school and study related. Well, it goes beyond there to an extent as long as you study. You get discounts on a lot of things, from clothes to travels as long as you study/is school related. Medical care and dentist care is completely free pre-20, but sadly cost beyond then. I don't mind though, I think I've visited a hospital twice my entire life. And I don't think it was anything life threatening <.<
 
How bad are taxes in Sweden?
 
Where was this 4 1/2 years ago >< Of course this still leaves the other half of the racket, the buy-back at the end of the year. $140 for the book in Sept, $20 back in Dec. Fuckers at least owed me a happy ending after that.
 
There is another disturbing trend in the textbook racket (I call it that because it's exactly what it is) that is not mentioned in the article. That's the trend for publishers to release university specific editions. This seems to be mostly involving MIS and business students at OU for now, but will eventually make it's way into all majors I'm sure. This keeps people from being able to sell their books to other students online, even students at their own school.

For example, a girl I work with is an accounting major at OU. A lot of the professors in the Price College of Business have worked out some of kind deal with the publishers where their textbooks are specifically written for use at OU and also come with extras that can only be used by an OU student. That means you can't buy the book online from someone at say Oklahoma State, for example, nor can you sell it to someone at say Univ. of Kansas. Also, they will change the edition the very next academic year, if not the very next semester, and completely rework the university specific material (homework problems for example) where you cannot even use a used copy of the book for the class. What really sucks for people who are MIS majors and engineering majors and the like is that their books can sometimes cost $200-300 per book and once the semester is over, that book is pretty much obselete and you're stuck with it.

It's all pretty disgusting if you ask me and for those of us who are paying for school on our own, we're getting tired of it. Fortunately for myself, being a philosophy/history/classics major, if I get to the library early enough I can check out virtually all of my required texts for the semester and not have to pay a dime...provided the professors don't require me to have a very specific translation!
 
or the changeing small information and the order of chapters in a book and calling it a new edition and then you cant sell it back when ur done with it cause its not "Current" cause the page numbers changed
 
You don't get something for nothing. The most basic principle of Economics. So the government limits the prices of text books. I can guarantee you that money is going to come from somewhere. Not sure how they will stick it to us but they will.

That being said prices are regoddamndiculius. I spend so much money a semester on books its staggering. The most apealing part about that law was none of this bundle bullshit that 99% of students don't want or need.

I loved this line by Bruce Hildebrand, the Executive Director of Higher Education for the Association of American Publishers:

“Why are there so many types of clothing brands, cars, magazines, and newspapers? Shouldn't two of each be enough?” Hildebrand said. “It's called market demand and competition.”

Competition? Are you fucking kidding me? You have one choice for textbooks thats it. One Textbook choice is NOT competition especially when the companies are allowed to pay the teacher/department off, or better yet the teacher writes the damn book. There is no choice, we the students are just boned. This law seems to be attempting to make it so that there WILL be a real competition about what books are used.
 
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