Professor Ian Ayres wrote in the NY Times, “In time for the new school year, the Government Accountability Office has released a sobering report on the soaring price of textbooks. Over the past two decades, the report tells us, 'College textbook prices have risen at double the rate of inflation.'”
The outlandish price of college textbooks isn't even the most offensive part of it. The truth is, the textbook industry is run by a small group of huge corporations who care very little about education. Like most huge corporations, their interests seem to lie solely in maximizing profits. When I was in college, I noticed that I had to pay outrageous prices for new textbooks because the sale of used textbooks was in decline. Why? Because those corporations found that the easiest way to make big money was to make small changes in the text or layout of the book every year or two, and release a new edition, which renders the previous edition obsolete. Colleges will not permit a student to use an older edition even though it probably has the exact same information as the new book because they want to make sure everyone is “on the same page”. These companies have even gone as far as to bribe professors into making their expensive books a requirement for their class.
In light of this, Jason Turgeon, of Textbook Revolution has put together an archive of free online text books, some of which can be downloaded and printed. Unlike some sites that host pirated copies of print textbooks, all of the material at Textbook Revolution is legally made available by the individual copyright holders. There's no log-in or fee to access the advertisement-free repository. That's right! Free brain candy! Similarly,The Assayer also offers an online collection of free books and collects user-submitted reviews. Combined with the seemingly endless amount of information that can be collected on the Internet on just about any topic imaginable, there's absolutely no excuse for ignorance in this day and age.
Other interesting articles about the topic:
All Systems Go: The Newly Emerging Infrastructure to Support Free Books by Ben Crowell
Are Copyrights A Textbook Scam? By Dean Baker
Sticker Shock by Cyndi Allison
Exploring the Infinite
No Excuse for Ignorance
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I'm not yet in college, but at my school (in Guatemala) I had to buy a calculus book for Q800 (a little over $100)
I'm so sick of freaking expensive books and the fact they keep coming out with new editions that have like a word changed every year. I have been using the site cheapesttextbooks.com which has really helped me. I found them in money magazine last year and they give really good deals on a bunch of book sites. I just can't wait until everyone uses sites like this one so the college book companies stop making so much money of us poor college students.