The Textbook Industry & Greed: My Story

Luke Thomas:

There's nothing more upsetting than knowing that you are being taken advantage of. I have four classes until I graduate college, and every semester the same thing happens time and time again.

I'm required to spend hundreds of dollars on the latest college textbooks and three months later I can barely fetch half of what I paid. It's the same story, but this past semester I was confronted with something much worse.

The Textbook Salesmen

I rarely visit my professors' office hours, but twice last semester I had the opportunity to watch salesmen from textbook giants (Cengage, Pearson, McGraw-Hill) work their way down through the faculty hallways, moving from office to office, with the goal of persuading my professors to purchase "custom editions" for their classes.

"Custom edition textbooks are tailored to your classes so only the content you choose is there. It's great for you and your students," they would say. I listened to this well-dressed team of salesmen with anger - I had just spent the last two weeks conversing with the university bookstore about unethical textbook practices by my English professor...

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 21, 2012 4:38 AM
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