Chris Cadero
RHT 101-010
March 11, 2013
Essay #3
College Textbooks
As many of us well know, purchasing college textbooks can be very expensive. As a college student, I can say that I have spent more on some textbooks than on the tuition for that class itself. In other classes we were forced to purchase a textbook that we very rarely, if ever, used. And in extreme cases I have had to purchase a textbook written by the teacher himself. Many students like myself, are shocked on their first visit to the college bookstore. The average college student spent more than $600 on textbooks last school year. That's according to consumer research group Student Monitor.
I personally think the cost of textbooks is ridiculous. Being a student that doesn’t receive any financial aid, I have to pay for my tuition and books out of my pocket. Although I am not a supporter of many subsidies of college costs, I am in favor of some sort of credit, or reimbursement for the cost of textbooks. I have spent over five hundred dollars per semester to buy books. The worst part is that some publishers will go out and make new editions of a textbook just to charge more money per book. These changes are often just small adjustments, a deletion of a paragraph, or perhaps to add a graphic design.
One of the biggest issues facing students is when you are done with the books they usually sit on a bookshelf never to be touched again, or sold back to the bookstore for pennies on the dollar. Even if the book is a brand new edition, there is no guarantee that the book will be used by the school for the upcoming semester and might not have any value at all.
There are many reasons why college textbooks cost so much. Compared to high school, a semester of college uses a lot more books. You will have longer reading assignments and some courses will have multiple books. There are also copyright fees. The publishers of large works of recent writings need to pay copyright fees to every author in...