Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 322 posts

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#291

Post by ryandrake »

zarzavat wrote: post #232
ryandrake wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a class where the textbook did that. I always would get last year's books to save more than a few coins, but the professor of this class would go through the problems in-class, and they were all different from what was in my book. I went to his office hours to understand why the problems he went over were different from the ones in my book, and he immediately lectured "Ahhhh you must have bought an older book f…

Incredible that this kind of corruption is tolerated in the credentials industry, most other industries would not tolerate someone making money from customers that way. Can you imagine going to McDonalds and the guy won’t serve you your drink unless you buy a cup from his side business?

It's awful, and it's shameful but nobody feels shame anymore. The moral bar is "what can I legally get away with taking from the world" now. Nobody is even capable of feeling shame for their actions. It's just "bank account goes up" = "i'm right".

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#292

Post by neilparikh »

gonehome wrote: post #76
8organicbits wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also remember an expensive discrete math book. I came home for the holidays and was doing some exercises when my dad found his copy from when he was at university. Most sections were word for word idential, but the problems were all different. His had a chapter on Fortran too.

I was told they scramble the order of problems so they can keep the books the same but force you to buy new editions in order to have the same problem numbers at what gets assigned. Basically minimizing cost to extort more cash.

Many of my professors would mention the problem numbers for both the current version, and the previous version, to deal with that specifically.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#293

Post by teeray »

One friend I knew in college did the math and realized he could buy a really nice SLR and tripod for the cost of his textbooks one semester. He bought the camera, tripod, and books. Then he spent an evening each semester photographing all the pages of all the books, then returned all of the books.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#294

Post by beej71 »

sthatipamala wrote: post #248
beej71 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a professor, just a full time instructor, but my salary is 40% what I'd make in industry. But it's worth it for the great health insurance and 4 months off per year. And for the fact that teaching is what I love. The salary is frankly embarrassing to share with my peers in industry. But not all of us take it out on the students. I find free books whenever I can for my courses. I even write books and let the s…

Are you THE beej of the network programming guide?

Guilty. :)

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#296

Post by beej71 »

electriclove wrote: post #101
beej71 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a professor, just a full time instructor, but my salary is 40% what I'd make in industry. But it's worth it for the great health insurance and 4 months off per year. And for the fact that teaching is what I love. The salary is frankly embarrassing to share with my peers in industry. But not all of us take it out on the students. I find free books whenever I can for my courses. I even write books and let the s…

Are you considering becoming a professor? Salaries for many US colleges and universities are much higher than most think.

I think instructor is where I want to be. I'm focused on instructional excellence, and I think research and grant writing would get in the way of that. My dream job is actually working for a community college with a pure focus on teaching and learning, but the pay there doesn't justify that decision financially, sadly.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#297

Post by LatteLazy »

Forgive my ignorance: what do student do with all these books? I did my U/G & Masters in Physics in Exeter UK. We used only 1 actual textbook (University Physics by Young and Freedman, about 45USD new). I bought 1 more by choice (Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas) because I needed some help there and the lecturer was weak. But all the actual information I needed was covered in lectures, tutorials etc. Assignments were class specific and produced by lecturers. How does the US system actually use all these books?

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#298

Post by x0x0 »

hgsgm wrote: post #90
x0x0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bundled prices and and a lack of price visibility often promote extortionate pricing, bribes, etc. The value of the current arrangement is students can't ignore the prices. I'd bet a nice lunch that if books were part of tuition, the net dollars flowing to publishers would increase.

Why would schools send money to publishers that they can hoard for themselves?

Because you only fight so hard to reduce costs that you can just pass through.

Schools -- assuming willingness / ability to spend $ on education is fixed -- are already losing $ that could have gone to them to publishers.

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#299

Post by thiht »

LatteLazy wrote: post #297

Forgive my ignorance: what do student do with all these books? I did my U/G & Masters in Physics in Exeter UK. We used only 1 actual textbook (University Physics by Young and Freedman, about 45USD new). I bought 1 more by choice (Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas) because I needed some help there and the lecturer was weak. But all the actual information I needed was covered in lectures, tutor…

I did my Master’s degree in France and I’ve never has a single textbook to buy. All of our courses were made by the professors. They obviously didn’t rewrite them every year because… why? It worked fine.

We had suggestions of text books if we wanted to go further, but they were all available for free at the university library

Re: High prices make textbook ‘piracy’ acceptable to most students

#300

Post by TT-392 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #211
TT-392 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a system like the one dutch highschools use. In that system, the students get the books from school at the start of the year and return them at the end of the year (the school owns the books). That way the books are for sure reused, and the price is reduced.

American high schools use the same model. It's only at university where you are expected to buy your books.

Ah, I didn't know that, well then, if people are already used to this system. Clearly it is the easiest solution then.
Post reply on HN