Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in California
August 19th, 2008 by tamarin2087Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in California - Los Angeles Times.
“What makes us rich as a society is what we know and what we can do,” he said. “Anything that stands in the way of the dissemination of knowledge is a real problem.”
McAfee said he wrote his open-source book because the traditional textbook market is broken. Textbook and college supply prices nearly tripled between 1986 and 2004, an audit by the federal Government Accountability Office found in 2005. With costs continuing to climb, it would be “reasonable to conclude that [individual student] expenditures can easily approach $700 to $1,000 today even after supplies are subtracted,” the congressional Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance said in a 2007 report
Simply fabulous quote from the professor. I can attest to the fact that college textbooks are a ridiculous expenditure, especially in math and science. Even if you can find them used, paying over $800 for one semester’s books wasn’t uncommon. Add to that the publishers’ zeal in closing down any kind of community book exchange program or other methods of helping students out and you have a pretty nice racket for the publishers.
As a secondary complaint, damn those things were heavy!