Textbooks. As if college wasn’t expensive enough already, am I right? I’m going to start by telling a quick personal story that I hope other college students out there can identify with.
The summer before my freshman year of college, I decided to buy all of the required textbooks for my courses well in advance.
I was new to the textbook game (and yes, it is a game) and I didn’t want to have to stress about it during my first few weeks of college.
There one book, the math textbook that will live in infamy. As a communications major, it was the only math course I would be required to take throughout my four years at St. Xavier.
This required textbook was a brand new edition with a web access code included for online assignments and it cost two hundred dollars.
I searched all the internet-based textbook companies imaginable for a more cost friendly option. Some websites gave me a discount of a dollar or two, but nothing significant.
That was it, it was two hundred dollars, no way around it, and my professor assured me that it was required.
So I bought it…or rather my mom bought it because I was freshman and I probably had fifty cents to my name at the time.
I found a little solace in the fact that the bookstore assured me I could sell back my textbooks at the end of the semester no matter where they had been purchased, and that would put at least some money back in my pocket.
The semester went on and I cracked open that book a grand total of about five times. I came to realize that what I was really paying for was the online access code.
In the end, I paid two hundred dollars for a short code that granted me access to Internet math problems that could never be reactivated once it expired at the end of the year.
I waltzed into the bookstore with all of my textbooks on the final day of class. I got five dollars for this one and ten dollars for that one, nowhere near what I had paid for it, but at least it was something.
Then, the moment of truth, the cashier scanned my two hundred dollar algebra book and quickly and nonchalantly uttered “We’re no longer accepting this book” and handed it back to me.
Shocked and angered, I politely asked…”WHAT? WHY?” to which she replied, “I don’t know. Maybe the school is no longer using this book or it’s an old edition.”
That’s right, I got a whopping zero dollars back because my 2012 edition book was now too old to be used in 2013.
I remember walking back to my dorm with the book in hand and calling my Dad to explain the situation. He assured me he would put the book up for sale on Amazon and he did, but it never sold. No one wanted this book because the online access code was no longer active and it was a year too old.
That book remains under my bed to this day. Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about this cruel textbook game, but I’ve also lost a lot of money and continue to do so.
Professors have even admitted that not much changes from edition to edition, maybe a chapter title or a few paragraphs, but those few paragraphs are apparently worth two hundred dollars.
It’s no secret that the price of a college education is already almost impossible to manage. Charging us hundreds of dollars for textbooks each semester just seems like kicking us while we’re down.
I know that publishing companies need to make money and professors need materials with which to teach their students, but am I crazy to think there must be a better way?
I’ve tried to be smarter in purchasing my textbooks this semester, so I didn’t purchase them until I spoke with the instructor, but even ones that have been “required” by my professors have not been opened even three weeks into the course.
One of my current professors at St. Xavier began the introduction to our course by stating that she will never require us to obtain any learning materials that are not free and available to us online.
That was such a relief and a breath of fresh air.
Perhaps more professors could think along those lines, or the school could purchase more than one copy of required textbooks to have available in the library for classes to use.
It’s all about giving the students options because right now we’re trapped. Our success is dependent on us having the materials we need.
There’s so much information out there, we shouldn’t have to take out another student loan to get our hands on it.
Bridget Goedke
Senior Viewpoints Editor