Current Events > Why have we become so complacent with the scam that is the textbook industry?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Imagine living in a country that lets publishers of educational material that is required for many courses price gouge broke college students, and then diminishes the buy back value on them by releasing a new edition next year that doesn't even have any new material.
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This is an issue that only affects college students and sometimes their parents, so 90% of everyone doesn't care.

It's bullshit, but out of sight out of mind, you know?
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almost every professor i've had encouraged us to "acquire" the e-book by any means we saw fit
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This is something basically every college student has complained about for decades, but once you get out of college there is no reason to care about
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That's just as much on the teachers as it is the Publishers, though. There's nothing stopping a chemistry teacher from using an older edition of a book that retails for like $20. There are also plenty of online resources that would allow them to forgo textbooks entirely if they choose. The issue is that many teachers are also authors on textbooks and get royalties from the sales.
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I graduated in 2016 but it still annoys me somehow.

But maybe that's because in my school, most of my teachers either scanned the pages they wanted us to read, or made us buy books that were only like $10 and easily accessible.
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Meanwhile, our (big, high taxation) government lets us access many if not all textbooks for free
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