$112.00 for a college Algebra text!

[evlbstrd]

Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle! Her books weren't near that expensive last year.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. try half.com

i got my $120 algebra text there, new for $20! and, it was the instructor's edition! :D

[evlbstrd]

20. I love you!

I just came back from there and saved almost $200 on textbooks!

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. evl, there is also a bookstore

right across the street from Johnson Co Comm College that has great deals on textbooks. My kid buys most of his books there.

[evlbstrd]

33. II'll tell her, thanks.

[bicentennial_baby]

44. Awesome!

I'm so psyched for you! :bounce:

[evlbstrd]

47. Your tip also helped her boyfriend

and the daughter of one of my co-workers.
I love DU!

[HeeBGBz]

2. My daughter just spent $700 on her nursing books

She starts school Thursday. Geez, you could damn near furnish a library with that.

[Skink]

4. Just wait for year two of a second Bush admin.

That's when it's over. Enjoy this year though.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. We just spent $500 dollars on books for my daughter for high school.

:( But, that's the price we pay...no pun intended. :hug:

[FuzzySlippers]

6. Is this a public high school??!!

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. No. She won a scholarship to a private school...they just don't tell

you about the "other" costs...like books, bus fees, lunch fees....Blech.

[FuzzySlippers]

12. Congrats on her scholarship!

I was worried there for a sec that kids were being priced out of a public education. Anything's possible in Shrub's America.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. I went to high school on a scholarship and I know what you mean

My mom told me years later that they really struggled to afford the 'extras'.

[TransitJohn]

5. 6 years ago

I spent $120 on a used calculus book....sure, I used it for 3 semesters...but still...wtf?

[Reverend_Smitty]

7. I'll see your $112 algebra book and raise you a $144 Physics book

the new edition of this book just came out this summer and I can get the older edition for like $40 online...I just have to wait and ask the prof if it is absolutely necessary to get the new edition. And the real kicker is, I hate physics!

[bicentennial_baby]

8. i'll see your $144 Physics book, and raise you a $175 zoology text

Ha! :D

[Reverend_Smitty]

10. damn you win!

:P

[bicentennial_baby]

11. it's a beautiful book though, i will say that

lots and lots of pretty photos of animals :)

[ofrfxsk]

13. I'll raise you another

One, yes ONE of my architectural geometry books cost me $350 in 1989!
I win!

[barb162]

16. oh that's amazing

[ofrfxsk]

17. I kind of enjoyed that part of my life.

All I did was go to school and waitress. I paid it all off before I was 28 mostly by waitressing.
Life is better now. I'm glad I went through it.

[barb162]

18. When we are young we have energy

I got my masters when I worked full time. I could NEVER do it now. I can't even figure out how I did it then other than very little sleep and lots of coffee. PS Good for you!

[hfojvt]

30. get the old edition

they haven't learned any new physics for at least 30 years. Certainly not at the intro level Gravity is still equal to G*M1*M2/4pi-rsquared

[justabob]

45. How about a $165 Spanish I text

I expect to pay a lot for math and science book, but my eyes bugged out of my head on this Spanish book. Only available new of course.

[soothsayer]

14. Do the math....

[DemoTex]

15. Algebra has changed SO much since the 1960s.

Algebra may divided into "classical algebra" (equation solving or "find the unknown number" problems) and "abstract algebra", also called "modern algebra" (the study of groups, rings, and fields). Classical algebra has been developed over a period of 4000 years. Abstract algebra has only appeared in the last 200 years.

The development of algebra is outlined in these notes under the following headings: Egyptian algebra, Babylonian algebra, Greek geometric algebra, Diophantine algebra, Hindu algebra, Arabic algebra, European algebra since 1500, and modern algebra. Since algebra grows out of arithmetic, recognition of new numbers - irrationals, zero, negative numbers, and complex numbers - is an important part of its history.

The development of algebraic notation progressed through three stages: the rhetorical (or verbal) stage, the syncopated stage (in which abbreviated words were used), and the symbolic stage with which we are all familiar.

http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~sxw8045/history.htm

Why it changes every day! One must keep up with the latest. 'Course my algebra books were free. That must mean that they weren't worth squat. Those free books prepared me for a 4.0 in math courses (calculus and differential equations) at Georgia Tech. Give me a break! I am shocked.

[hfojvt]

31. sure in the 1970s there was "Disco algebra"

but it died. Now its all algrebra rap.

[WCGreen]

19. If billy had a text book that costs $112.00 and if he passes the

class he has a chance of making almost $1 million dollars more in the "real" world, how come his sister listens to Lindsey Lohan.....

[evlbstrd]

21. Aaaaaaargh!

[Initech]

22. I paid $98 for my math textbook last semester. USED!

New it was $122!

[ucmike]

23. i'm convinced costs are tied to the amount of aid available

seems to me that as the amount of money available to students grew so did the costs associated with going to college. i'm convinced that fed. student aid programs are just a way to funnel cash from the govt to corporations. if there were no such thing as financial aid most of the companies that make huge profits on students would prey elsewhere. if the only money available for college came from parents pockets it would cost less to go to college.

back on topic: i remember paying $160 for a set of construction/physics books and only using one of them. then when i tried to sell them back at the end of the year they wouldn't pay for the unused book ("we don't need it because its not used in the class") and would only give me $25 for the other. next semester they resold it used for $85.

[evlbstrd]

24. I've noticed that little trend.

It is a predatory practice.

[Orrin_73]

25. Why didn't you copy the book

you could have get the book from the library and copied it. I do it all the time with my university book. I never buy.

[Omphaloskepsis]

40. I have done this a few times...

I took a government class that had a $110 textbook. Luckily the bookstore was out of copies when I went to buy it. Turned out we only needed 6 pages from the book. I borrowed the book from someone in class one day and made copies of the six pages for thirty cents.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. It has gotten ridiculous

You would be shocked at what we have to pay for textbooks in elementary school. And library books - OMG.

[LastKnight]

29. damn, i paid 200 for mine

last year. ok well it was a calc book. but still.

[tuvor]

32. Ha! I paid close to that over 20 years ago.

$227 in today's dollars, you tightwad.

[TheMightyFavog]

34. You're going to be jealous of me for this.

UW-Stevens Point has textbook rental for most textbooks. You go to the bookstore, grab your textbooks, and return them at the end of the semester in exchange for a small fee tacked on to your tuition bill. You do not pay for your books uless you damage them, lose them, or want to keep them. The only textbooks that one really has to buy are workbooks, forgien language dictionaries, books on software, and the public speaking textbook, which is written by the professor who teaches it. (fortunatley, I took public speaking in junior college, so I dont have to worry about that class.)

[Jamastiene]

35. Yep. That's about the same as mine. All total I spent around $600 in Pell

money for text books. I'm sure glad the Pell Grant exists. I sure couldn't afford it otherwise. And yes, the excuse for the high prices about theft of books is a ridiculous lie. The college book store where I go to community college even limits how many people are allowed in the store at one time, so you know nobody is able to steal.

[NMMNG]

36. Try Half.com

You can get new, like-new and barely used stuff there dirt cheap.


Another great source to check is MySimon . There you can comparison shop from multiple sites just by entering the title or ISBN (International Standard Book Number) of the book you are looking for. The ISBN is your best bet because it is unique to the exact book you are looking for (edition, format, publication year, etc.). Many times the course syllabus/information will have this number listed with the other book information, and if not you may be able to ask for it.

Here is the comparison shopping information for Fahrenheit 451 , which I used as an example.

[NoSheep]

37. You do the math. n/t

[6000eliot]

38. College textbooks are a colossal rip-off

[JVS]

39. Textbooks don't sell enough to take advantage of economies of scale.

Look at it this way, suppose it costs roughly the same to set up your machinery to print Harry Potter or College Algebra. In the case of Harry Potter, because you'll sell so many the cost can be divided into smaller bits. In the case of College Algebra, maybe there are only a few thousand that are going to be sent to stores. This is why textbooks often are so expensive.

[fujiyama]

41. They seem to get more and more expensive

I would recommend two websites if you have sufficient time before a class (usually one week unless you don't mind borrowing one or have other plans if you don't have the book the first week).

Check out these two sites:
http://www.bestwebbuys.com/books/
www.bigwords.com (they used to sell books but that went under during the .com bubble - now they have a comparison tool).
http://www.alldiscountbooks.net/ (haven't used this but they say they search 110 stores online).

I used another great search took which gave low prices but can't find it. I'm not sure how many stores it searched but it was a lot. I never bookmarked it. When I find it I'll list it.

On edit: Here it is: http://www.fetchbook.info/ (122 stores and 66000 sellers) - likely one of the best book search tools I've seen.

[pinniped]

42. Algebra should not cost more than trig- $102.00.

.

[DrDan]

43. for a mathematics book, its worth it

now, if it were an English book, or a history book . . . .

[bleedingheart]

46. ...and it costs less than $5 to produce....

that is the real kick in the head.

I work for a company that has a textbook that is used in colleges...

We give out copies of that textbook more frequently than the literature about our software.....and the prof that wrote the book told me that it is actually cheaper to produce than some of our glossy handouts...