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Summary critique the high cost of college textbooks
Rising cost of college textbooks
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The Illusion of Used Textbooks
This article, “Why Are Textbooks So Expensive?” by Henry Roediger reveals the truth of why textbooks are so pricey. He shows how textbooks prices are costly not because of inflation, corporate textbook companies, and frequent revisions, but because of the sale of used textbooks. The article is elaborating on why used textbooks are the real culprit as well. One main point that is highlighted is that used textbooks are resold for many years. The initial selling of the textbook is the only time the author will make a profit, but the bookstore will make a profit every time they resell a used book. It is essential for the author to raise the price to compensate for the loss of money when dealing with used textbooks.
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491). The inflated prices of textbooks contribute to the used textbook industry because the bookstores get nearly double the price of the author. If the bookstores don’t sell the copies, they send the left over books back to the company and get a full refund. The bookstores have nothing to lose and they are making a substantial amount of money because of the resale value. I agree that textbooks are overpriced because of the claim Roediger makes when stating that textbook prices are too high for students to afford. The bookstore has nothing to lose because they do not lose any money if the books are not sold, while the students are suffering. The bookstore loses no money if students don’t purchase the book because if there is a large number of books left over, the bookstore sends them back. Roediger says “If books are not sold, they are retuned to the company for a full price refund. It’s a no-risk business” (Roediger, pg. 492). He recognizes that this textbook company is a no risk business and the side benefitting from this company is the one making all the money; the textbook companies are constantly winning. On the other end of things though, students need their textbooks to learn and have to pay the price listed for each textbook. An average full time college student enrolls in 15 credit hours which balances out to taking around five classes per …show more content…
This tactic portrays how used textbooks are the real culprit, and I agree that this topic feeds into the reason why textbooks are so expensive. In theory, the buyers of the used textbook think they are getting an amazing deal but in reality, buying a used textbook only raises the price of new textbook. In this article Roediger says “One major dissimilarity in these cases are pirated movies and music are legal and used textbook market is legal” (Roediger, pg. 490) The used textbook market is unjust to the company and the author, and it demonstrates that the industry is at fault. While the act of pirating movies and music is illegal the concept of selling used textbooks directly correlates with the idea of textbook resale without the author profiting. From Roediger’s perspective the used textbook industry has been portrayed in an undesirable light. Roediger speaks negatively of the used textbook industry by saying, “they are true parasites, deriving profits with no investment while damaging their hosts” (Roediger, pg. 490) I agree that the used textbook industry is greedy because they are benefitting from work that never belonged to them. The authors are doing the heavy lifting while the used textbook companies profit
Many items, including book are often hard to appraise or many be invaluable, the book “The secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson costs $21.95. IT is difficult to purchase anything in today’s economy for this price. This book has never made it to the movies if it had I would expect it to be worth a lot more. Just on the fact alone that this book is based on a true story is a seller alone. This book should be a number one best seller getting five star reviews. The publicity of this book was nowhere near enough. With more publicity the author probably could’ve sold more copies and lower the price interesting even more buyers. The book should have as much publicity as “Don Quixote”. Because the more people that read a book or film the more a book is worth purchasing. Then you can talk to everybody about the book your reading and other people can join in on the subject with you. Since the book is a book in the schools definitely means it’s a worthwhile buy. Lots of people have read it and it’s a great topic to start or continue conversation
Instead of giving facts about what he is arguing or simply stating his views on the topic, that music piracy is not stealing, he gives facts telling why it actually is stealing. This is contradicting to what he tries to prove and confuses the audience right at the beginning of his essay. In his concluding paragraph he uses a metaphor to attempt to make his point but, it turns out to be extremely puzzling. “Copywriting as we knew it in the twentieth century is doomed. It will still be able to thrash and writhe for a while yet in its death throes, and cause plenty of collateral damage in the lives of certain individuals, but it is ultimately dead meat” (Moore 249). The metaphor he uses is muddled because by trying to personify copyright it creates a cynical and different point than he is trying to make to end to his essay. Also, it does not tie into the introduction leaving the reader curious about how the opening and closing paragraph are related. The introduction gives all of these statistics of why music piracy is stealing. The closing paragraph gives a description of copywriting in the twentieth century is “doomed”. The two paragraphs are opposite from each other and do not make any sense to the points he is attempting to
Louis Menand, a professor of English and American literature at Harvard University presented three different theories for higher education in an article for The New Yorker named, Live and Learn: Why We Have College. Menand (2011) claims that the reasons for college are meritocratic, democratic, and vocational. These theories are great models for the purpose of higher education in our culture, at different points in our history. As a nation, there are definite intentions behind the way that instruction is conducted in our colleges and universities. The techniques adopted by institutions of higher education are no mistake and they are designed to serve a purpose. These methods evolve with time and shape the way that generations think and reason. In our generation, the purpose of higher education in our culture is to sustain the nation atop of the worldwide economy.
In his essay “Colleges Should Mandate That All Textbooks Be Digitized,” Mark Pensky, software designer and author of Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom, takes the position that colleges should ban non-electronic books to improve teaching and learning. Some of the issues he speaks to are; what a bookless college would look like, moving education into the 21st century, addressing pushback of the social and cultural norms, creating enhancements to the educational system, the advantages of having an all digital campus, and the roles of teachers and college surrounding this subject of banning non-digital textbooks.
Vogel, Steven “Grades and Money” Dissent Fall 1997: 102-04 in Mary Lynch Kennedy and Haley M. Smith. Reading and writing tin the Academic Community. 2nd ed, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall 2001. 337-340.
In order to best understand why implementing such a loan program would be most beneficial to the students one must understand why textbook prices have spiraled out of control. The problem lies with textbook pub...
The next point that Parsons makes is that because of the budget cuts there is a shortage of paper on campus. Students are to download syllabus and absorb the cost of printing themselves. Therefore, raising the cost of being a student. I can’t say that I completely agree with this point. In the couple of years that I have been in college I have never had to print syllabuses off of the Internet. I was always given a copy from my instructor.
In conclusion, America provides many ways to help reduce the cost of college textbooks but society is still not satisfied with the outcome. The Open Textbook, Affordable Textbook Act, and book store rentals are wonderful programs, but has its disadvantages that hopefully would be resolved in the 2016 presidential elections. The statistics show that many students across the nation benefit from learning with quality of teaching, the amount of accessibility it provides without having to worry about paying off student loans. School administrations should consider about transferring to an act that would benefit both the school and the students, but also provide more equality to the publishers and students.
In Austin, Texas, every decade fifteen people influence what is taught to the next generation of American children. The highly politicized Texas Board of Education gets to rewrite the teaching standards and textbook standards for its approximate 5 million schoolchildren. However, any changes made in Texas, trickle down into the rest of the nation. Texas is home to one of the nation's largest textbook markets (the other being the state of California), because as a state, it decides what textbooks schools can buy, rather than leaving it up to local districts (“The Revolutionaries”). Hence, publishers face the economic conundrum of whether they curtail the intellect...
That day I got to know that even the cost of books had a direct impact on how many or which classes students took. Even some students try to get through classes without buying the books, which has affected their grades badly. A 2014 study conducted by the Student Public Interest Research Group found 65 percent of students skipped purchasing a textbook because of cost(Senack11). Along with these problems, some professors demand a specific edition of textbooks which would cost hundreds of dollars more than the older version and the only difference students could find is the physical appearance of the books. The California Student Public Interest Research Group published a study in 2004 that found new editions cost 58 percent more than older editions and newer editions are not that different from previous
Price discrimination is a corporate strategy where a seller offers the same product to customers at different prices. This practice is a technique where sellers appeal to a wide range of customers and capitalize on opportunities to maximize profits. The word discrimination often has a poor connotation. However, in terms of finances, the word discrimination merely denotes to how sellers can sway market price in order to meet the demand of buyers. In the United States, price discrimination generally is discussed and debated at the higher education level. In higher education, price discrimination denotes a scenario where academies charge unlike tuition prices to students for the same quality of education. This practice can be done at both the university and departmental levels as well. In order for price discrimination to occur, the seller must have the ability to adjust price. Price discrimination is also used by a seller that is offering a product that has a strong consumer demand with few alternatives. This is done because customers are willing to pay more for a given product. This entry provides examples of price discrimination in the private sector and in higher education.
Paper has officially been replaced with iPads. Just kidding, but there are over 1.5 million iPads that are being used in classrooms by students on a daily bases rather than using printed textbooks as main learning resources (Graduating With Technology). With recent advancements in technology, many school districts have turned the focus off traditional learning methods of using textbooks, and are now focusing on integrating the use of tablets and computers as the main means of learning for students. Technology is going to continue to advance throughout this digital age and is going to gain popularity within education, but there are questions arising of how effective technology is when used in the classroom. The opportunity of using new technology to enhance learning should be seized, but textbooks should not become extinct within the education system or become a secondary learning method due to tablets and other types of technology becoming more popular in the education system. Textbooks are reliable, they can be used by anyone, and there are enough textbooks for each student to have their own, and be able to take them home. Also, technology is impacting the way the brain receives information. Reading digital print isn't as productive for readers as printed text, and there is limited access to resources needed for tablets to be effective when used by students. While this is true there are benefits to using tablets and other forms of technology in the classroom. It is easier for teachers to have assignments emailed directly to them, or post assignments on the internet, the use of technology is required in many core classes, and textbooks are easily worn, and expensive.
During the past few years, the publishing and reading world has been facing a veritable digital book onslaught. E-books have been outselling print books on Amazon since 2011 (Polanka, 7). While digital book sales skyrocketed, print book sales, especially those of mass marked paperbacks, diminished. Even the fact that e-books are not much cheaper than print books does not seem to interfere with the former’s popularity. It would seem that the age of print books is about to end, and quite soon.
At the same time as the publishing industry was developing in the USA, the states enacted legislation controlling the adoption of textbooks and the provision of free textbooks. In Kordus’s (2000) article, it was found that legislation standardizing procedures for adopting textbooks arose during the mid-nineteenth century in each state in response to the development of graded organization requiring uniform textbooks for formal schooling in classes. Initially, uniformity was practiced at the local level through laws requiring each local school board to adopt a list of textbooks, which parents were required to supply over a given period of time.
The companies, of course, maintain they are merely providing learning materials for inquisitive students. But there's good reason to think online plagiarism is becoming a real problem on college campuses. The Evil House of Cheat page now boasts over one million hits; A1 Termpaper claims thousands. Although a "hit" is a visit, not a sale, it is hard to imagine that thousands of students--at least 8,000 a week--are visiting these sites, and no one is buying. A spokesman for "The Paper Store" told me that his company's yearly traffic in papers was "well in the...