Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive?

Re:Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive? by kjackson2012 on Thursday January 10, 2013 @08:08PM (#5040768)

There is no "market" for textbooks. Professors assign a single textbook, and students are forced to buy it. If a class could somehow allow for different textbooks would allow students to pay for cheaper textbooks and create price competition. But it's hard to do in practice if not impossible.

I didn't say they should mandate a fixed price. I said the book publishers should charge a fair price, one that decreases the amount of pirating because it's low enough so that it's not worth it for students to pirate. That's up to them. Until they do, I fully support pirating of textbooks.

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Re:Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive? by csomar on Thursday January 10, 2013 @08:50PM (#5040913)

Professors assign a single textbook, and students are forced to buy it.

No one put a gun on your head to go to that college. You took this decision and then you must be responsible for the costs of tuition, housing, books... Inform yourself well of the college and professors before enrolling too.

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Re:Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive? by jamesjguthrie on Thursday January 10, 2013 @08:14PM (#5040797)

I also fully agree with pirating textbooks. I'm still at university and require books every now and then. Just the other night I needed access to a book that hasn't been published as an e-book and was $105/£65 if I even had enough time to get it from Amazon. So I downloaded it from a popular torrent site.

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