Free College in San Francisco

[Fife]

MOAR FREE

[apeman]

Semi-related, but another transparent scam in higher ed is book prices, teachers will update their books, revising little to nothing of any importance whatsoever, in order to induce students into buying new, multi-hundred dollar books of which they will read very little in any case.

[Fife]

Semi-related, but another transparent scam in higher ed is book prices, teachers will update their books, revising little to nothing of any importance whatsoever, in order to induce students into buying new, multi-hundred dollar books of which they will read very little in any case.

I know a guy who is a textbook salesman. It is an incredible racket. Almost as much of a racket as title insurance. Well, nothing's quite like that, but it is a sweet gig.

[apeman]

I refused to buy any such new textbooks throughout 3 years of law school -- never was tested on a single item that wasn't 100% covered in the old editions.

Total scam.

[Okeefenokee]

Instead of subsidizing insanely high costs they should lower the cost of college.

A dead end road to price controls.

I don't mean the government should set the price of college. I'm talking about lowering the cost by eliminating the waste and forcing these universities to mind their budget. Throwing more tax money at them only makes them more inefficient.

Withdrawn, then.

[Okeefenokee]

Semi-related, but another transparent scam in higher ed is book prices, teachers will update their books, revising little to nothing of any importance whatsoever, in order to induce students into buying new, multi-hundred dollar books of which they will read very little in any case.

That's on the way out. Not any time soon, but the trend seems to be more used and rentals, and the exact edition isn't always that important. Plus, we all just pass around the pdf versions for free anyway.

The way the publishers are making up for that loss is by getting teachers to use online homework programs that the students have to pay for. First time I got a teacher who did online homework, I went to the head of the math department and told her I already owned the textbook, and I wasn't paying money to do homework. She reached on the shelf behind her, and handed me an access code. They must get interns or coding students to make those things, because they fucking suck.

[Okeefenokee]

Semi-related, but another transparent scam in higher ed is book prices, teachers will update their books, revising little to nothing of any importance whatsoever, in order to induce students into buying new, multi-hundred dollar books of which they will read very little in any case.

I know a guy who is a textbook salesman. It is an incredible racket. Almost as much of a racket as title insurance. Well, nothing's quite like that, but it is a sweet gig.

One career day in high school, a pharma rep told us all about getting doctors to prescribe his company's pills rather than generics. Said it like it was nothing.

[MilSpecs]

Semi-related, but another transparent scam in higher ed is book prices, teachers will update their books, revising little to nothing of any importance whatsoever, in order to induce students into buying new, multi-hundred dollar books of which they will read very little in any case.

That's on the way out. Not any time soon, but the trend seems to be more used and rentals, and the exact edition isn't always that important. Plus, we all just pass around the pdf versions for free anyway.

The way the publishers are making up for that loss is by getting teachers to use online homework programs that the students have to pay for. First time I got a teacher who did online homework, I went to the head of the math department and told her I already owned the textbook, and I wasn't paying money to do homework. She reached on the shelf behind her, and handed me an access code. They must get interns or coding students to make those things, because they fucking suck.

The mandatory access codes started popping up in earnest the last two years. We rent used and it's impossible to get used with the access code.

[Okeefenokee]

Semi-related, but another transparent scam in higher ed is book prices, teachers will update their books, revising little to nothing of any importance whatsoever, in order to induce students into buying new, multi-hundred dollar books of which they will read very little in any case.

That's on the way out. Not any time soon, but the trend seems to be more used and rentals, and the exact edition isn't always that important. Plus, we all just pass around the pdf versions for free anyway.

The way the publishers are making up for that loss is by getting teachers to use online homework programs that the students have to pay for. First time I got a teacher who did online homework, I went to the head of the math department and told her I already owned the textbook, and I wasn't paying money to do homework. She reached on the shelf behind her, and handed me an access code. They must get interns or coding students to make those things, because they fucking suck.

The mandatory access codes started popping up in earnest the last two years. We rent used and it's impossible to get used with the access code.

That's the point I just made. It's an end route against the end route. I buy my essential texts used. Pre-cal, cal, physics, chemistry, statics, electromechanical, etc. I'm one of the few, if not the only one who actually buys them. Everyone else just trades the pdfs. I even had a cal teacher who gave us a link to the pdf of our calculus text. I bought it anyway, but shared the link on the old DCF. Both in pre-cal and physics, I had to get the online homework access code. I tutor math and science, and daily deal with the shit online homework applications other students have to deal with.

These programs are garbage. They are absolute shit. They are thrown together so shittily that it leaves no doubt that the only reason they exist at all is to raise revenue. It took me two minutes to recognize what I was seeing. Textbook publishers are losing revenue because schools aren't playing ball with textbooks anymore, so they are marketing to teachers programs that make their jobs easier by putting together code that spares them from grading homework. The half cocked web apps that they push out are fucking garbage.

1/2 is the same as .5, but these shitty programs don't know that, so students using these apps get their grades docked because the garbage ass interns who put these apps together don't account for it.

Fuck Pearson.

[MilSpecs]

I should sit down and calculate how much more these access codes have cost me over the last few years. You're right, every aspect of college is going up without justification. I have two in at once and my goal is to get them out with minimal debt and then hopefully have them live at home for a year or two to pay it off. I don't know that their fields won't take them far away, but I understand that this is how lots of kids are doing it.

My husband bought his engineering texts and has kept them all these years. Never opened them once - he went directly into sales engineering.