Legalized theft!

If you want to know what kind of economic model is being taught to our children, buy college textbooks. It is legalized theft!

The universities and the NY textbook publishers have been steadily working for years to eliminate parent’s options and create a monopoly.

You think I am exaggerating?

Enough parents complained that Congress addressed the problem through legistlation that goes into effect next July.

What is the big deal? I’m glad you asked

Q:  How much has basic college Calculus changed since Isaac Newton invented it?

A:  Not much. You could probably use Newton’s original notes and do just fine.

So, you would think that you could just buy a used copy of last year’s textbook for $30-50 and head off to class…

Hold on there…

not so fast..

That would mean that the NY textbook publishers wouldn’t make any money! They’ve got to keep up with the Goldman Sachs’s of the world! We can’t have that! No, that will just not do…

The “smart” people in academia solved this conundrum as follows:

If the textbook publishers change just a handful of pages in the book each year, they can call it a new edition. The professors will then require the latest edition for their class…

Since it is a new edition, there are no used books available. Students (read parents) will have to buy new books! Both parties profit handsomely! Problem solved!

How much does that latest edition cost? $239!

What an ingenious way to extract even more money from the parent’s pockets!

I have personally had to, and I mean had to, buy “special” editions of the “new” edition that were made for a specific community college! I have heard of cases where there have been “special” editions made for a specific professor’s class!

But even that won’t stop resourceful parents like myself. I’ve got to at least try!

When we visited Drexel on Tuesday, I went to the bookstore and wrote down all of the ISBN numbers of the textbooks that my son would need so I could try to find them cheaper online.

Fat chance!

One ISBN came up!

So, we had to make another trip back (over the bridge!) into Philadelphia to the Drexel campus bookstore. Steam was pouring off of my ears!

When I asked the manager why none of the ISBN’s showed up ANYWHERE online, I was informed that the ISBN’s that I wrote down “were for the package.”

The latest devious academic assault against parent’s economic well being is to shrink wrap a special online access code that is specific to each class on a computer disk with the textbook. Evidently, I wrote down the “package” ISBN.

So, I quietly asked/demanded the information that I requested on Tuesday…the ISBN for the BOOK!!!

I found three used books and ended up saving $164…but it still cost $500!

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One Response to Legalized theft!

  1. Amy Lentz says:

    I spent $500 on books as well! And I got all but one of the books on amazon.com.

    I’ve come to find that getting the older editions don’t hurt your test/overall grades…really, at all. If a chapter found in the newer edition is professed on, there are assumably several test questions regarding it, but that small percentage isn’t worth spending the extra couple hundred bucks!

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