According to this cnn article, you get to spend roughly $4,500 on textbooks while you make your way through college.
I have to ask, why? There really is no excuse for this. With all of the information available out there, students should be paying $0. Seriously. We have libraries filled with books and journals, we have OpenCourseWares, we have audio and video lectures, we have wikipedia and wiki books. With just a little bit of effort, you can provide a student with the information she needs at no cost.
Or what about pedia press? A site that offers content found on wikipedia in text form for pennies on the dollar. A professor can put together their own text, or buy one already preassembled. I threw together a 280 page book on the history of Africa. Cost – $11.80. a 1,300 page book (You could break it into two volumes if you wanted), on astronomy… $25.
Compare that to a 500 page, $100 page book on Amazon.
Seriously now, would you rather have, a textbook or this? If you take three classes, chances are you could have a wii instead of books that you may or may not read before the semester is over. And if you decide to sell the wii on e-bay, you’ll get about what you paid for it, instead of the $8 you’ll get for selling back your $200 textbook.
So, all you students out there. Tell your faculty members to give you links to sites, not textbooks. That way you’ll have more money to spend on…fiction books. I know a good book coming out in May you might want to consider purchasing. :)
