[brytlea]

IMHO college textbooks are a scam perpetrated upon students. I have had professors require texts that were barely even used in class. And many of the texts were basically unreadable (by that I mean very poorly written). I think (could be wrong) that many of these books are written by college professors and it is sort of an incestuous system.
Can you tell my husband and I put ourselves and 3 children thru college?? ;)
susie

[KarlInOhio]

Getting a list of text books and edition information a few weeks before the quarter started was like pulling teeth. They did not want the student to be able to special order a text book through another book store and avoid the college's book store price gouging.

[Richard Kimball]

I teach college, and totally agree. I've busted my rear end to keep text costs for my students below $100 for a fire academy, but it's not easy. Also, often instructors do not have any say in which texts are required for their classes, as it is a departmental decision. Therefore, instructors who don't like the text (and don't use it much) still have it listed as a "required text."

Instructors also don't particularly care for the endless string of textbook reviews for texts that haven't changed substantially, but enough to prevent them from being used in successive years. I've used the same text, mostly, for seven years, and it's nice to know exactly what page to tell students to turn to for an example, and have all my notes in the margins.

College has value, but IMHO, is way overpriced. Some textbooks HAVE to be high priced, particularly in upper division courses where the textbooks are technical and printed in small quantities. A trigonometry book for $135, though, is IMHO, way overpriced. How much has trig changed in the last five years, that there need to have been two new editions printed?

BTW, the ads will only temporarily lower the price, until the practice is established. They're dealing with a captive market that MUST buy one specific textbook.