Thursday, October 16, 2014
Mo' Money, Mo' Problems
Between our textbook review and having to order our books this week I have been doing a lot of thinking about composition textbooks. One of the biggest challenges for me is the price of textbooks. I have such a a hard time justifying the use of a textbook that would cost the students more than $40-50. I know that the content should probably be more important than the price, but having been one of those students that had to purchase those books and still getting notices about my own student loans I can't help but take the price of a textbook into consideration. I was one of those students who tried to pay for all of my books out of pocket if possible and sometimes that was a struggle. When I was still majoring in the sciences, I paid almost $800 for all of my books and equipment for one semester. That probably wouldn't have happened, except that semester all of my instructors chose new editions of textbooks that I couldn't find used copies of. My struggle now is that I love Dr. Ranieri's multimodal textbook, but I believe it costs around $90. I think the students would get a lot out of it, but at the same time how much are they going to be able to focus on school work when they are worried about having enough money to pay for it?
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I recommend people have their own library. It doesn't need to a new or fancy book.
ReplyDeleteBut sometime in a future, the library should be the first resource when we recall for something to write.
I don't want to spend $90 to one of resource books but I want to save my money for THE resource book in my library.
I think my saving grace when buying books has always been Amazon. Considering that won't be an option for Dr. Ranieri's text, I'm not sure how to justify a $90 textbook, other than it's online and from what you said it seems awesome. That being said though, while money is tight, being well prepared for a class is important and compared to other texts in science or what-have-you, where they reach the mid-one to two hundreds, $90 isn't quite so terrible.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. If it were up to me, I'd use an old edition of the text that they could pick up from Amazon for a buck. Textbook prices are insane. As a first-semester freshman, I was taking 5 classes. Two science classes, a math class, an English class, and something else. Way back in 2007, I didn't know about Amazon. I just went to the bookstore, gave them my list of required texts, and they grabbed them all for me. I spent $900. For one semester. (I've since, obviously, discovered Amazon and other cheap textbook websites, and I haven't spend more than $300 since). I never want to be the cause of that kind of financial burden for my students, but I also recognize that sometimes it's unavoidable. You have to choose the book that's right for what you want to teach, and sometimes that'll be a more expensive book than you'd want.
ReplyDeleteSara, I struggled with this decision myself before using Dr. Ranieri's book. It's expensive, and students don't walk away with a book. Honestly, I probably didn't pick the book for the right reasons, but I will say that none of my students complained about the price. I think it was because they were new and didn't know better. But I also had some athletes on scholarships, and their books are covered. I think, but don't know for sure, that the text price is covered for anybody with academic scholarships. In other words, I think it goes on their list of fees. Still, I do wish it was cheaper. At least you have a while to think it about it.
ReplyDeleteThis is such an important consideration! It's so frustrating to consider how expensive textbooks are, and how often the new edition is "necessary" when the content might not be substantially changed from an old edition. As an English & Writing major, I appreciated that as I got into higher level classes, I mostly needed novels or similarly-priced books rather than textbooks. $90, while it is a lot, doesn't seem like the highest price they could pay. So I do think you could justify it if you were sure that the content was what you wanted!
ReplyDeleteI remember my English books being some of the least expensive (for the most part), but I think if the extra 30 bucks will help them walk away with more information, it's worth it. N brought up a good point about most 103/104 students not knowing much about how much books cost, and while that may not be ethically comforting to you, it's true. They are paying a lot, the extra money will be pennies if they are able to get a great job because of their superior writing skills you taught them through a digital copy. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI feel like we're all conscious of overly-priced textbooks and their annoying nature, but the onyl reason I ever hate spending a lot of money on a textbook is when the professor doesn't utilize it as often as possible. While nobody REALLY likes book work or reading, If I'm using my textbook often enough, I feel as if I'm getting my money's worth. So at the end of the semester in retrospect, I'm more okay with the fact that I spent that amount of money on it.
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