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Who picks textbooks at your college? Is it your actual professor or some other faculty member who has little reason to pick a more inexpensive version?

Well, textbook companies are really hoping to get to that faculty member and get him or her to pick the bundled packages that are now being offered. The bundled packages include a NEW book as well as materials for the class. If a professor thinks that bundling these together will save the student money, the professor or other faculty member is dead wrong.

This is the new way that textbook companies are trying to combat the rising use of use textbooks and now that used textbooks can be bought and sold over the internet and through sites like half.com instead of just the local bookstore, their business is really hurting.

Textbook companies have also been trying to bundle the boos into a looseleaf style package where the book can’t be sold back to the bookstore and you have to find a student who is willing to buy a book that’s like that. I think I bought two books like that the whole time I was in college.

I know that some professors really don’t care if they are saving their students a few dollars or not. I have known professors to require books they don’t ever use or they end up teaching straight from PowerPoint presentations.

I’ve also seen professors go for the most expensive and newest book (so there aren’t any used copies yet) and say that the “old” book isn’t good enough or isn’t current enough when in fact, the “old” book was published only a year or two prior and the information is almost completely the same.

I’ve even had a professor lie about being able to use the same book for the next class level up. That’s just a shady way to get a student to buy the book.

Sometimes I wonder if the professors are getting some kind of cut on the sale of new books.

Jeremy

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