Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Didn't want to start this way.

The cost of college books for certain majors are getting outrageous for today's standards, and its not just that the publisher are screwing over students on a semesterly basis. My latest example to date: About 1 week into my current semester I purchased this book http://www.cengage.com/cengage/instructor.do?disciplinenumber=419&product_isbn=9780324828580&courseid=TX01&codeid=2A8E&instructorFlag=true South-Western Federal taxation 2010: Taxation of Business entities for $227 from my campus bookstore. Trust me when I say I searched high and low for a cheaper price on this book and that's what I came away with. So knowing I had no choice, I bore the cost, but hey it wasn't sooo bad, it was a brand 2010 edition I knew it had to be worth a good amount still for the upcoming semester. Well guess what my friends, today is book sell back day and I just got offered an astonishing $1 for this book, which is in great condition I might add. Why only a $1 you might ask? The scum bag publishers in charge of new editions decided to make a new one, and screw the hard working students over, and my university decided to let them. This is not the first time I've had this happen either. Out of the 5 accounting books I've purchased, I've received more than $10 only once, and it was still less than 1/3 of the original purchase price of the book. I know that the business world is ever changing, but there has to be a better way to bring updates to the students without breaking our backs with $200+/book costs each semester. I really don't blame my university because they are most likely in contracts with the publishers to release new edition in order to get cheaper prices, but these greedy publishers have got to be put to a stop. Now I've got to get back to studying for the rest of my finals so I guess that's it for now.