I am at an Australian University that has a very good and very popular distance education program. I can't afford text books as the cost/benefit ratio of a text book purchase is far less valuable then that of food and basic utilities. I can access most text books through the local library and find that i rarely need to do so. I did have one unit that required a text book that i couldn't find at any local libraries, including the local university libraries. I needed the book as it had to be referenced in the assignment. It was all very frustrating because the author of the book was actually my lecturer in the subject. I don't know why she couldn't just tell us the stuff that was in her book. She is getting paid to teach us after all, but the greedy cow wanted two pay days, and was determined to get it by forcing us to buy her book, which was not popular enough to be picked up by any other universities. I couldn't afford it so i ended up paraphrasing some stuff from the lecture notes that were referenced to the book and got a high distinction (my best mark ever), with the comments from the marker stating that i demonstrated very good knowledge of the text. I can't believe that text books are still being used at universities when the rest of the world has recognised the power of the internet as a source of information. I am also disgusted that my university forces us to reference certain books. Why is it that information from another text book, that is just as valid, can't be referenced instead? We all know the answer, money. I hope that textbooks get wiped out completely. $150 for information is just way too much in the modern world
I'm with the student. It's criminal that some teachers (in my past, for example) will publish a low-volume book on a subject, and then require his students to fork out $150 for it when there are many other books on the subject that cover it AT LEAST as well, which can be had for much less. In general, I find college texts to be ridiculously expensive, and nearly annual "revisions" are printed for many of them that change virtually nothing but the exercises -- to guarantee that used books are often unusable.
tah hell with that, give it to me free! -- ain't no money here for YOU!
I am at an Australian University that has a very good and very popular distance education program. I can't afford text books as the cost/benefit ratio of a text book purchase is far less valuable then that of food and basic utilities. I can access most text books through the local library and find that i rarely need to do so. I did have one unit that required a text book that i couldn't find at any local libraries, including the local university libraries. I needed the book as it had to be referenced in the assignment. It was all very frustrating because the author of the book was actually my lecturer in the subject. I don't know why she couldn't just tell us the stuff that was in her book. She is getting paid to teach us after all, but the greedy cow wanted two pay days, and was determined to get it by forcing us to buy her book, which was not popular enough to be picked up by any other universities. I couldn't afford it so i ended up paraphrasing some stuff from the lecture notes that were referenced to the book and got a high distinction (my best mark ever), with the comments from the marker stating that i demonstrated very good knowledge of the text. I can't believe that text books are still being used at universities when the rest of the world has recognised the power of the internet as a source of information. I am also disgusted that my university forces us to reference certain books. Why is it that information from another text book, that is just as valid, can't be referenced instead? We all know the answer, money. I hope that textbooks get wiped out completely. $150 for information is just way too much in the modern world
I'm with the student. It's criminal that some teachers (in my past, for example) will publish a low-volume book on a subject, and then require his students to fork out $150 for it when there are many other books on the subject that cover it AT LEAST as well, which can be had for much less. In general, I find college texts to be ridiculously expensive, and nearly annual "revisions" are printed for many of them that change virtually nothing but the exercises -- to guarantee that used books are often unusable.