That’s what I did. Got $160 back, got a few books from the library here and there. I beat everyone to the library, pretty much. It was great fun.
After I figured it out around the middle of my second semester, I became VERY phlegmatic about whether I would actually need certain books in the class, as my teachers had a bad habit of insisting that we buy books that we would not ever actually use.
I really only got burned once (semantics, I think) and all that meant was a frantic midwinter trip to the U. de M. to read their copy.
I just kept my books. I find them interesting, and I love being able to access information when I need it.
Need to know anything about acoustics? Got an entire textbook on it. Principles of Music Education? Got you covered. Fiction writing? Excellent paperback resource.
Yes, I will use (most of) them again.
I keep some of mine. The Psych textbooks have proven useful time and time again and my Film textbook is an interesting read on its own.
I kept my psychology and sociology textbooks, since I figured I’d want to refer to them again. I kept a huge book about Roman history on the theory that some day, having read the half that covers the republic, I’d get around to reading about the empire.
If textbook reselling is the #1 buyback scam, video games have to be a close second. It’s one thing to offer $1 for a two-year-old sports game that no one else will buy, but when week-old games are fetching you $20 or so and being hopped back on the shelves for $44.99, hmmmm…
Been to an EB or GameStop lately? Some of them have more used games than new games anymore.
I bought any textbooks my bookstore carried USED, which was about half of them, then used half.com for the rest. Next semester I will buy as many as possible on half.com, then see what I’m forced to pay full boat for at the bookstore. Of course, my bookstore is the same store that charges $60 for a zip-up hooded Rose Bowl SWEATSHIRT (any guesses who I’m talking about here?) We’re charged too much for EVERYTHING here.
I bought a slightly older edition of a textbook for one of my econ classes. We were supposed to have 7th ed. and I bought 6th. It cost me: $10. The 7th ed. would have cost 7 times that much. Only one occasion all semester did I find it missing anything I needed, and it was just one version of a graph. Oh fucking well, I’m still pulling a high B.
The best part about half.com is that (aside from the old book), I can sell them back to my school, and I’ll probably recover at least half what I paid. Admittedly, too lazy to resell on half.com.
I recently completed my teacher certification… and paid for it myself.
The school, the textbook publishers, and the bookstores, as far as I can determine, are hand in hand in the process of raping the students for all they can get. After all, they’re all getting money from home, or student loans, right? Free money.
…except for us “nontraditional students” that financial aid won’t touch. We pay for it all ourselves. And I can’t help but feel it’s human nature to be a little irritated when a professor tells you to buy a $75 paperback book… then either has you read one chapter, or better yet, changes his/her mind and doesn’t use the book at ALL…
…and you’re stuck with a $75 paperback book you didn’t want, have no use for, and will never read…
…and then, the bookstore offers you $12 for that same book.
You say that buyback is not a right. You’re quite right, of course. But telling me not to be angry, or saying, “Hey, at least you’re getting something,” feels a little bit like telling a gang rape victim, “Hey, at least they didn’t kill you, or tie you down while they called all their buddies and rested up for Round Two.”
Exaggerated? Yeah, probably. I apologize to all you gang rape victims out there for putting my own poor problems in the same category with yours. You got it worse, certainly.
But you still ain’t gonna convince me there is any excuse on ghod’s green earth for selling a 200-page paperback for $75.
Except raw greed, of course. And the ability to indulge it.
I keep all my textbooks as well. Mostly because I’m an English major, and I like my textbooks. But I keep my GE texts as well. Sure a few might be out of date eventually, but you never know when you’re giong to need information on the Big Bang, or cell mitosis, or the principle God of Mesopotamia, or well, you get my point.
Almost ALL of our customers are non-traditional. I’m not talking about the people who have to scrimp and save to buy their books. I’m talking about the people who buy a book, tell me their company pays for it “ha, ha, at least it’s not my money” and then BITCH to high heaven that I don’t give them all of their money back.
Look, I don’t set the prices. I don’t tell wholesalers or the bookstore how much to pay you for your book. This is a not-for-profit institution, and greed doesn’t much come into it. Blame the wholesalers, not me. I make $7.00 an hour, don’t give me shit because their prices are so high.
Here’s a solution. Get rid of buyback. You’ll never buy another used book. You will always pay full price for your books, brand new. You’ll never get a measly $12 back on your $75 purchase. How many more trees do you think will be cut down to make the hundreds of thousands of books to replace all of the books you’re now forced to keep because I’m not allowed to buy them back?
I’m not telling you not to get angry. I’m telling you not to take it out on me.
Almost ALL of our customers are non-traditional. I’m not talking about the people who have to scrimp and save to buy their books. I’m talking about the people who buy a book, tell me their company pays for it “ha, ha, at least it’s not my money” and then BITCH to high heaven that I don’t give them all of their money back.
Look, I don’t set the prices. I don’t tell wholesalers or the bookstore how much to pay you for your book. This is a not-for-profit institution, and greed doesn’t much come into it. Blame the wholesalers, not me. I make $7.00 an hour, don’t give me shit because their prices are so high.
Here’s a solution. Get rid of buyback. You’ll never buy another used book. You will always pay full price for your books, brand new. You’ll never get a measly $12 back on your $75 purchase. How many more trees do you think will be cut down to make the hundreds of thousands of books to replace all of the books you’re now forced to keep because I’m not allowed to buy them back?
I’m not telling you not to get angry. I’m telling you not to take it out on me.
sorry… bad hampsters.
It lacks class to scream at the clerk, hon. I’d be very surprised if anyone was cutting YOU in on the insane amount of money they’ve vacuumed from my pockets.
And I’d bitch as loudly, whether they were offering me the $12 back or not. NO excuse for a $75 paperback, particularly when every bookstore in town is in on the same racket.
But when persons without much class are dissatisfied with their situation in a retail instance, they often choose to let fly at the first face in immediate range. Any number of threads around here about that, I believe.
Doesn’t make it right. But at least nobody tried to run you down like that McDonalds’ manager… 
yet.
Don’t you mean wrapping the students?
You know what’s so sad about this? MCSE and other computer certification books run for about 20-55 dollars, and they are almanac-like in information.
Well, some of them anyway. The new ones are really jacked up in price as well.
I once had to pay $120 for a calculus textbook, but thankfully, it was used in all four of the classes. Got two years’ worth of use out of it. 
Then, the day before my last calc class’ final, I took it out and shot it. Yes, I shot my textbook. Pulled out a .40SW and shot my textbook. It was cathartic to say the least. 
Then the next day, the prof informs us that we can use our books on the damn test. :smack:
Tripler
Damn book actually stopped the round, too. I’ve got a hole up to page 719.
I work for a small college textbook wholesale company which has four retail textbook stores, so I have some experience in what some of you are talking about. (I don’t actually work in the retail stores. I work as a computer tech at our corporate office.) At the end of the semesters, I usually fill-in as a buyback person at one of the stores. At the start of the semesters, I usually help out as a customer assistant on the sales floor. I see the money come in and I see it go out. Granted, we would rather see the money come in, but that’s the nature of all business.
As was mentioned before, we buy books for the wholesale as well as the retail market. We define a “retail” book as a title which has been selected for use in an upcoming semester on the local campus. “Wholesale” books are titles which are not being used locally, but which are being used on other campuses. One of the things which hurts everybody on buyback is when professors fail to turn in the next semester’s required text lists in a timely manner. Typically, our stores will pay up to 1/2 of the new shelf price on a textbook if we know that it will be used the next semester. (During the first few days of buyback, we will even do this for used books as well.) After we reach our projected retail sales amount, we will then drop our buyback price to the wholesale value. Without a text list from a professor, we are unable to assume that a book will be used locally, so we buy the books for the wholesale market. When we find that a text will, in fact, be used next semester it can turn out to be a windfall for us. However, it makes us look bad in the eyes of the students when they see the book re-appear on the shelves after we’ve told them it hasn’t been listed for buyback. Bad timing all around, but it’s not always the bookstore’s fault.
When I was going to school twenty years ago, we didn’t have a book buyback at our college bookstore. In fact, I didn’t know that such a thing existed until I began working at my current job. Sometimes I was able to re-sell my books by posting them for sale on the bulletin board in the student lounge, but most of the time I was stuck with the books permanently. The concept that you could resell a book to the bookstore after using it for a whole semester seems like a good deal all-around. Under ideal situations, you should be able to buy a used book, use it for the semester, and re-sell it for half of what you paid for it (sometimes more). If the price being offered on buyback doesn’t suit you, post it for sale on Half.com or find another student who will buy it from you for the price you’re asking. If you didn’t use the book during the semester, don’t expect to get a full refund on your book. (The fact that you didn’t use the book isn’t our fault. You can blame that on yourself or your professor. Take your pick.)
The fact that we must make a profit on the sale of new and used books is a fact of life. We’re a business, and that’s what we must do in order to be successful. By the same token, we don’t want to be profitable at the expense of angering our customers. The book publishers would absolutely love it if used textbook sales would vanish from college campuses. Professors could require textbooks with tear-out sheets which would render books unusable for upcoming semesters if they wanted to. (I’ve personally seen this on two of our campuses.) Of course we would have to charge more for new copies of these textbooks, but we would save untold expense and man hours in having to buy, reshelve, grade, and ship used textbooks.
Until we completely free ourselves from the printed word and convert totally over to e-media, this will continue to be the way things are done. After that, you will probably be forced to download non-transferable copies of your textbooks for pretty much what you’re paying now–and you won’t be able to sell the copies back at the end of the semester. Nice, huh?
So what am I trying to say in all of my rambling? First, college textbooks are expensive, but we try to help the students and ourselves by buying back used books whenever possible. If our prices don’t suit you, sell it on your own terms–but be prepared if things don’t work out as you’ve planned. Second, bookstores are businesses, so we have to make a buck in order to pay our bills and our employees. We have to eat, too. Third, expensive textbooks are a relatively minor problem when compared to other things you’ll encounter later in life, so keep it in perspective. Trust me, you’ll forget all about this once you’ve graduated. You will, however, think about it later when you send your kids to college.
Just my two cents…
Any idea how they did that? When I went to community college some people rented out the ballroom at the hotel across from campus and did the same thing…made a good chunk of money. And yes, the college hated them, but had no way to get them shut down.
According to one of my instructors the problem is with the publishers. He said that he’s had a “textbook” be about 100 pages long while another text that WAS NOT classified as a “textbook” be about 350 pages, color pictures, etc. Prices of the two books were roughly $80 and $25 respectivly. The second book VASTLY superior in all ways, yet less than half the price just because the publisher did not classify it as a “textbook.”
FWIW, this last semester cost me about $250. Got about $80 back.