Tuition: $3,303. On-campus housing:$2,843. Books, coursepacks and CD extras, that may never get used: $500. Realizing that's the cost for one semester - priceless.
Tuition and living costs are necessary evils, especially in a time of tight budgets. But professors and university officials, in general, could help cash-strapped students by limiting the number of books required for a class, especially those that include expensive and unnecessary CD extras.
"Rip-off 101: How the Current Practices of the Textbook Industry Drive Up Cost of College Textbooks," a survey conducted by the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, said CD extras, which are included with many books students are forced to purchase, are "rarely" or "never" used by 65 percent of professors.
This really isn't news to most students who have had a class where a CD was sold with the book and then never used.
While the CDs might be beneficial in foreign language courses where students need to hear the language as well as read it, many science and math CD-ROM extras end up in a pile on the dorm floor.
One way students could save money on books would be if the CDs were sold separately. This way, students could buy the book (which may or may not be used - a whole other issue) and purchase the CD at a later date if it's really needed.
Another way classes gouge students in the pocketbook is by requiring a new edition of a textbook every year. Then, when students go to sell back these books, the bookstore offers them $1.50 for a $50 book because it no longer is being used. These updates are inevitably more expensive, because there aren't any used books to buy.
What really changes that much in the span of a year? Unless it's a book about current events, why is there a need for a book to be updated and sold new every year? What changes in a year in a math, biology or history book?
Students shell out hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on books every year because they have to, and the least textbook companies could do is give them a break and sell CDs separately and not issue a new book every year.
