- #1
aeroegnr
- 17
- 0
College textbooks are costing 120 bucks new, and since most campus bookstores seem to be taken over by E-Follet, the used ones sell for 90-100 dollars, sometimes as low as 80 for really old math textbooks.
So far, I've gotten 2 textbooks from foreign countries (two different foreign countries might I add) with express shipping and they end up costing half the price of the new books (even with international shipping)! The books I have received are brand new, shiny, without any damage.
I have also been purchasing international softcover editions, which in some cases are black and white instead of color, in other cases they are full color, but are half the price of a new book as well.
My girlfriend mentioned that the USA prints and sells books to foreign countries at a lower rate than they sell them here. I'm assuming that E-Follet can get away with what they do by the ignorance of students, and by the sheer amount of money being given away by state governments (in the form of taxpayer's funds) to college tuition. It really seems that E-Follet is almost being subsidized through education funding.
Not only are the new books expensive here, but a new edition comes out every 2-3 years with hardly anything significant being changed, and the teachers pull problems out of the book for mandatory homework, requiring students to buy the new edition with renumbered problems or problems with slightly different conditions.
How much does it take to publish a college textbook anyway? I just know that there are executives of E-Follet running around with ferraris and porsches...kind of like how I imagine the record label guys.
So far, I've gotten 2 textbooks from foreign countries (two different foreign countries might I add) with express shipping and they end up costing half the price of the new books (even with international shipping)! The books I have received are brand new, shiny, without any damage.
I have also been purchasing international softcover editions, which in some cases are black and white instead of color, in other cases they are full color, but are half the price of a new book as well.
My girlfriend mentioned that the USA prints and sells books to foreign countries at a lower rate than they sell them here. I'm assuming that E-Follet can get away with what they do by the ignorance of students, and by the sheer amount of money being given away by state governments (in the form of taxpayer's funds) to college tuition. It really seems that E-Follet is almost being subsidized through education funding.
Not only are the new books expensive here, but a new edition comes out every 2-3 years with hardly anything significant being changed, and the teachers pull problems out of the book for mandatory homework, requiring students to buy the new edition with renumbered problems or problems with slightly different conditions.
How much does it take to publish a college textbook anyway? I just know that there are executives of E-Follet running around with ferraris and porsches...kind of like how I imagine the record label guys.