Lab Fees
Because I did my degrees in Literature, I was pretty much more than happy to buy my text books and keep them forever, and the cost never exceeded list price anyway. But most actual text books, the kind you buy for Economics 101 or Biology of the Cell or whatever, are very high priced items indeed, and apparently that cost is rising year by year. I’ve had some experience in this, and I didn’t keep any of those books, not surprisingly, since they go through frequent revisions, at least one purpose of which appears to be to ensure a revenue stream to the publisher, who would otherwise see very little return on the investment, largely because these are not books that have a market outside the university system, often only even the university at which the professor who wrote the thing is working. It always seemed a little suspect when the course text was written by the course professor (or worse, his personal friend), but I realize that’s probably an extreme reaction. It does seem to me, however, that since the professor is teaching from what he or she has learned from primary sources, one of the things I’m supposed to learn is how to understand those sources myself, so to use a text that essentially summarizes the source material in parallel to the instruction provided during class hours – well, I wonder if I come away with everything I should. It’s very expensive to run a college, and expensive to attend even a mediocre one, so I have to wonder if there isn’t some way universities could manage their budgets and material requirements in such a way as to improve affordability? Perhaps ensuring that professors have scanning equipment and a CD-burner so as to create course-packs of supplementary material (riding under the copyright threshold)? Working out a deal with major publishers to create a university-use-only imprint of required texts? A little innovation might go a long way. (No word from Smith, where an Ivy-leaguer of my acquaintance has just started, but I’ll bet books are pricey. Perhaps she’s making good use of her parents’ extensive and varied library?)