I have an issue with the way publishers of textbooks are in cahoots to destroy students financially. There is problem when a student who is going to CUNY school, most likely to save money in the first place, is spending tremendous amounts of money on textbooks that they probably do not intend on keeping. The publishers decide to come out with new editions and the schools adhere to their request and force students to buy a new edition of a book that just may switch around a few chapters or take out some irrelevant data. I do believe information changes overtime and it is neccessary to update certain areas of interest as new data is revealed but not every two years. I couldn’t sell back any of my books used for the semester including a history textbook! Please explain how history changes?! It is rediculous, I think a new method has to be initiated somewhere in the middle, a compromise, if that’s what you want to call it. Just an idea, maybe all textbooks are created in a PDF and sold for a fifth of the price. This would not only be an advocate to the “go green” movement but would save students money, allow the publishers to come out with their so called “new editions”, and save students from lugging around heavy textbooks all day. Just an idea but something needs to change.
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Expensive books are a real problem. CUNY has taken some steps in this regard. My book for Macroeconomics course is the condensed edition of the original, customized for the use in Baruch only, and it comes cheaper than original. It saved me some money—not alot. Your solution, pdf file, is very viable. I would just build on that. The head of each department should create a book for the course in pdf, instead of using books by famous authors. This way it could cater better to our needs, and would come really cheap. Other expensive books on the same subjects should be available in the library, in case someone need it for research.
In my opinion, this is a very inappropriate to ask students to buy new edition textbooks. Most the new edtion textbook are exactly the same as the old ones. I had one class last semester. The professor insists that we must have the new edition textbooks which are much more expensive than old ones. Some of the student bought the books, but they figured out that there is no difference b/t those two editions besides the new one is colored version. This is rediculous, we don’t care if we books are colored verion or not. We care what we learn from school. Students buy the textbook by many hours working even more. The professors really need to take student’s money seriously.