I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days — God only knows why. I used to think the arrangement was odd — that the horns were out of place with the 60s pop flavor of the rest of the song. Now I think it’s genius. YMMV.
Something I’ve discovered this week: it’s breathtakingly expensive to send a kid off to college, even if the tuition is already paid. The price of books is just fucking outrageous! Stupidly, I thought maybe books had become cheaper since I went to school, what with mobile devices and the internet and all. Nope.
Also, stuff like parking permits — ridiculous! And setting up a human being in another household, even if you make use of thrift stores, etc., when possible — absurd! I find myself admiring my parents’ gutsy call when I graduated from high school, which was to wish me luck and wash their hands of me financially.
Now that the mister and I are the sole occupants of our nest, I have decreed that 2:30 PM Eastern time on a Sunday is an appropriate time for a cheap champagne brunch. I went to the store a while ago for supplies, forgetting that the hideous mega-church down the street had just let out.
All the congregants had streamed into the grocery store ahead of me, and I had to fight cart traffic in every aisle to acquire mimosa makings and biscotti baking supplies. Now I’m just waiting for the champagne to get cold so I can follow its fine example and chill the fuck out myself. You?
Corner Stone
You load 16 tons, and what do you get?
dmsilev
Hah.
Soon you and your daughter will discover the second half of that scam, which is that textbook publishers put out “updated” editions very very often for the sole purpose of destroying the market for used textbooks.
Corner Stone
B Crack, you had almost 18 years to plan for that cheap champagne brunch ritual.
sigaba
That guy ain’t playing the drums I’m hearing.
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: A bad back?
Corner Stone
@dmsilev:
Mine did an advanced math course online over the summer. Between the time I ordered the textbook from the approved store and the time it arrived – it was updated. Yep, a separate $70 course book.
raven
Fish is on the smoker but I had way more redfish than I thought, 4 big filets on the half shell, so they go on the regular grill in a rib rack. The girl is arranging flowers, Bohdi is on alter an Lil Bit is oblivious. I don’t know why it took three days but when “Hello of Old Friend” came on I finally lost it thinking about my brother.
Iowa Old Lady
@Corner Stone: Publishers put those revised edition requirements in the writers’ contracts with the exact intention of undercutting used book sales. Text books are one of the few segments of the book market that consistently make money.
One trick is that the publishers rep gives the teacher a sample copy, so the teacher may not even know how much s/he’s asking the students to spend.
bk
Great song! The band actually eventually morphed into Rufus, of Chaka Khan fame.
Major Major Major Major
My boyfriend at the time got his textbooks from one of those reimportation sites. Pretty good deal, if you knew the right edition. Are those still around?
What’s the kidlet studying? I got through grad school without buying a single book, but something tells me that that’s information science for you!
sukabi
Saw something the other day that Bill & Melinda gates have put an entire library of text books online for free, I’ll look for the link.
Immanentize
@dmsilev: At least in the law school textbook world, it is even a bit more evil than that — publishers buy back textbooks at a way reduced rate, then they DESTROY the books to make the used textbook market tighter. Currently, the best bet for textbooks value wise at College is to rent the book for the semester. Less cost, no buy-back hassles. Truly.
Corner Stone
@Iowa Old Lady: “One weird trick…”
I actually bought a teacher’s edition from CA and it was super useful and worth every penny.
MattF
A new high of new lows.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Chilling with Sunny the parrot and waiting for Lady Thunder and Doglius to get home from his vet checkup.
Then late brunch and I mow the lawn.
Have to crash early this evening so I can get up at 2:45 am and catch a flight tomorrow.
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: Amazon is the primary sale/resale site outside the campus store. In some big markets (like Boston) there are sort of special Craig’s Lists for textbooks. There is a federal law which requires all course materials (that are known) to be listed when registration happens so that the students can shop around…. It really has at least stopped the growth of book costs — which is why most university book stores are just swag outlets now.
Iowa Old Lady
I’ve just spent a couple hours trying to format a paperback book to sell on Amazon once my rights revert to me at the end of this month. I’m really impatient and this is finicky work. I think I hate how it looks. But then, it’s been out for a year so it probably has all the sales it’s going to get, so who cares? Is it too early for wine?
Corner Stone
Rewatching NLF pre-season games on NFLTV. Why is Jimmy G still in at QB in the second half in Pats v CHI?
Immanentize
@Iowa Old Lady:
FTFY
PS — It is NEVER too early for an adult libation on a Sunday….
geg6
My campus (about 720 students) has free parking and book rentals. Over the last two years, book rentals have saved my students $250,000 on book costs. Greatest thing ever!
raven
@bk: My friend from high school, Dave “The Hawk” Wolinski was the keyboard player for Rufus. He wrote “Ain’t Nobody” and Quincy wanted it for Thriller but Dave had promised it to Chaka.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Did you lose your brother recently? If so, my condolences!
@bk: Seriously? That’s a fascinating evolution!
@Major Major Major Major: Majoring in chemistry and taking tons of advanced math classes.
Immanentize
@geg6: Our undergrad/grad (not Law) Library gets three copies of every text in classes of at least 20 to have in the reserves for student use. Many students use the library copies exclusively. Last year, the library started renting instead of buying those reserve editions and in one year we saved 117,000.
raven
@Betty Cracker: My “brother” from high school, Vietnam and beyond. He was undergoing cancer treatment at the VA in Huntington, W VA. Two weeks ago he said it was going well but he got in a motorcycle wreck and, while I guess he should have survived, his heart gave out.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
One of my physics texts in 1982 was $90. I almost keeled over when I saw the price. (The federal minimum wage was $3.35/h then.)
It’s flabbergasting, and a huge problem.
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@geg6:
The schools and school systems that have saved the most money for students with OpenStax free textbooks are:
No. 1
University System of Georgia
$3,542,802
35,942 students
This is openstax
debbie
@raven:
Great song, great album.
Immanentize
@raven: “Tell me Somethin’ Good” Rufus? Damn.
Immanentize
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: $225 is not an unheard of first year lawschool text price. And most professors have no clue….
Scamp Dog
@dmsilev: It’s “Another day older and deeper in debt.” Google “Tennessee Ernie Ford 16 tons” to find a youtube video and the lyrics. Actually, once you get halfway through “Ernie” that should pop up as one of the suggested searches.
You can also find him on Youtube singing “While We Were Marching Through Georgia,” if you’d like to hear a rousing anti-confederate tune. Tennessee Ernie Ford was my grandfather’s favorite singer. My grandfather’s been gone for nearly 30 years now, and I still miss him.
Kathleen
@dmsilev: Yes. I used to be inside sales rep for college textbooks. Sold Business texts including Mankiw’s econ.
sukabi
Betty, I couldn’t find the article, but did find other info… Gates in partnership with Rice University teamed up a few years ago and developed http://www.openstax.org, I’m not having luck getting it to load on my phone, bur here is another site with five sites offering free online college textbooks
Betty Cracker
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: One of my kid’s books is >$300!
@raven: I’m so sorry.
geg6
@raven:
Our bookstore’s rental program rents both new and used books. They charge the book’s price to the student’s account and, when the semester is over, they pay about $20 on average for new books and $10 for used as long as the books are returned, regardless of condition (unless totally unreadable). The account is updated and most students pay less than $100 a semester for books. With our small student body, a savings of over $100K a year is massive. Makes me happy!
Schlemazel
We sent our kids to state universities with the agreement if they graduated we would pay their loans. I am now in debt more than when we bought our first house!
What strikes me as most hilarious is that they won a couple of academic scholarships . . . $500 would have been huge 40 years ago. Now it wouldn’t buy 2 textbooks. Ah well, we have done the best we could to give them a start.
Mike in NC
I recall at least one class in college where the textbook was written by the professor teaching the course.
raven
@Immanentize: Stevie Wonder wrote that one. Hawk played with the Shadows on Knight, Bangor Flying Circus and Maruda.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I’d imagine the math textbooks should be easy enough to come by cheaply, unless they’re doing the ‘new edition’ racket?? Ack, I don’t know.
hitchhiker
Math & science books are the worst. Always tomes, heavy & expensive as fuck.
We got our shock when the daughters wanted to take advantage of semesters abroad type stuff. Costa Rica, Paris, Malawi, Grenoble …. yikes.
raven
@geg6: It’s one of the things where we can make a difference.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike in NC: Ooh. At Iowa State, if you used your own textbook, you were supposed to remit all profits to the University. I have no idea if that was ever enforced.
It’s not necessarily wrong for an expert in a field to use a book they wrote. They are, after all, the expert.
sukabi
Ok, post got swallowed. Here’s a link to free college book resources
Kathleen
And it is a racket. But there are ways that get around it. Or used to be. Textbook publishers are scum of the. earth
Shell
Anybody got the FreeForm channel? The movie “UP” just started. ‘Adventure is out there!’
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: She can buy international editions and save a ton of money, even if she has to pay shipping she will come out ahead.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s what I meant by the reimportation thing. The textbook companies were furious when they realized people were doing that but they lost at SCOTUS.
father pussbucket
Coupl’a questions: Is there some deficiency in the FEMA response to the LA flooding? What is the official golfing blackout period following a disaster?
I’m actually surprised that PBO has not (?) held a “my heart goes out to” presser, but maybe he’s worn out from mass shootings.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: Rentals are not that cheap. Sometimes you want to hang on to your textbooks, especially the stuff you may have to use later for reference. I have all my textbooks and have moved with them 4 times in the past decade.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
Before I retired, I taught Internet Technology at a community college. Texts change rapidly, but faculty always get complimentary copies – which can then be put in the library on reserve for students. Also, some publishers make rentals available as well as allowing faculty to designate which chapters will be used – so students only rent the relevant chapters – which makes it much cheaper. Still not cheap – but better than the whole book!
BTW, if students use Amazon or other online vendors, the book may not come until midway through the semester.
Lizzy L
Woke up at 5:30 am — 6:30 would have been normal, but oh well. Going to a wedding today. Gonna have a good time (music, food, friends, partay!) and take the opportunity to dress up a bit, fancy duds and sparkles at ears and around neck. I have to drive so no or very little alcohol, which is just fine because I’ve pretty much given it up. The event is going to be at Lake Merritt in Oakland CA, one of the lovelier places in our urban landscape. Hope y’all are having a good Sunday!
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Many well known STEM texts have international editions which are way cheaper. Also too, Dover editions, which are paperback versions of famous texts.
Immanentize
@raven: Wow. That is impressive. Shadows of Knight. I so loved them. “Oh Yeah” is still a song I pull up every so often to just make me happy — Such a great tight group sound and fun guitar stuff…
“Take it easy, baby, you got me runnin’ hot…”
M. Bouffant
I believe we can blame the Citracal (Or some other product; see how ineffective advertising is?) advert on the telly.
EDIT: Sleep Number beds.
schrodinger's cat
@hitchhiker: Instructors get them for free, so they don’t care.
raven
@Immanentize: We used to go to The Cellar in Arlington and The New Place in Algonquin to see them.
Aleta
@Corner Stone: A busted up shoulder and your TV set
raven
@Immanentize: This is a really good interview with him.
David “Hawk” Wolinski will be joining us to talk about his career in the music world. Hawk is a keyboardist, song-writer, and record producer best known for his work with the funk band Rufus and their lead singer Chaka Khan. Hawk has worked with numerous other artists as a musician, song-writer, or producer including The Bee Gees, Glenn Frey, Michael Jackson, Stephanie Mills, and many others. Hawk has also worked a lot with former Night Views Radio guest Danny Seraphine and will talk about writing with the founding member of rock group Chicago.
Immanentize
My textbook lists at 225, Amazon new for 202, used 177, rent from amazon 80-133. It is horrible and I am embarrassed….
Ryan
Never used textbooks for that very reason. Easier to assign 3 books plus articles, weave together a coherent class, save the kids hundreds of dollars.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, I used Dover Thrift in undergrad for lit classes.
Immanentize
@raven: Next thing you’ll tell me is that you used to know everyone in MC5….
(Thanks for the interview, I just downloaded it to listen while I smoke the pork shoulder….)
smintheus
That has to be the worst fake drumming ever. Even by the standards of ’60s shows that’s pathetically obvious.
Gelfling 545
@dmsilev: Daughter the younger started law school on Friday. Despite a pretty good tuition assistance deal, they are flat broke from buying textbooks.
raven
@Immanentize: Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers! Them’s was Detroit boys. . . now Athens, GA folks.
MattF
If I didn’t already have a living room table, I’d definitely get one of these.
bk
@raven: Didn’t Shadows of Knight cover “Gloria”?
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: You can get by with old editions, if you just copy the HW assignments. Problem Sets are pretty much the only the things that change between different editions of Intro Texts.
J R in WV
@raven:
Oh, man, I am so sorry to hear that. We see people getting killed in wrecks all the time, “if it bleeds, it leads” on TV.
After so many risky periods in his life, to get nailed on a bike while being treated.
Scritch the dawgs for me, and take care!
JR – who is a 1984 Marshall U grad. I have some lost cousins in Huntington, too, probably.
Again, take care!
Anoniminous
@Iowa Old Lady:
Know somebody who taught at Iowa State, wrote his own textbook, and the answer is “no, they don’t enforce it.”
Immanentize
@raven: I know MC5 was Detroit, but I thought you might have seen them as they played Chicago mostly as their “big venue” haunts. I grew up in upstate NY, so I never got out of the Big Apple music scene until I was out of college…. SAD!
And Athens, GA had (has?) a GREAT scene. Pylon, Method Actors,
Well Ok, REM, B-52s too, but still…
Origuy
Calculus hasn’t changed much in 200 years, but the textbooks change yearly. They tweak the exercises so that the homework assignments based on the edition the teacher is using doesn’t work on earlier editions. Change the constants, reorder the problems, and the work I did using edition 20 can’t be graded by the teacher using edition 21. It’s a scam.
Eric U.
class I taught has an assigned textbook. It’s worthless. I don’t know if anyone bought it, I didn’t see any copies. If I teach that class again, I am contemplating telling them not to buy, I hate it and I’m not the only one. Funny thing is, the department got a custom edition printed and it was lots cheaper than the regular hardback version. Don’t know if they will do that for just any school though. The other departments use the same book, but they didn’t go for the special edition. Ours sold out, there were still copies of the full-price edition on the shelves when I went to look.
One of the faculty in my department wrote a book and the department adopted it. I compared it to the book I was asigned on the same subject from 30 years ago, and it’s a pale shadow of my book. But the faculty like it, so we use it. I don’t think anyone makes much money from writing a book, but keeping it in print is good for your CV, it’s one of the things that the department brags about
I think calculus should be taught out of one of the many free books out there. It’s a little ridiculous that people redo a book that someone wrote 50 years ago and sell it for $200 when there are free editions out there. Sure, they would have to write their own exercises. Oh, the horror!
Major Major Major Major
@Anoniminous: My profs loaned out copies of the textbooks they’d written, which was nice.
PaulWartenberg2016
College?
GO GATORS.
Anoniminous
@schrodinger’s cat:
Textbooks are useless as long-term reference books in rapidly advancing fields. Neuroscience is a good example. It has been recently (December 2015) reported glial cells use the same epigenetic DNA methylation transferase functionkreis as neurons. Major huge (YUGE!) and fundamental discovery regarding brain function.
raven
@bk: Yes, WLS wouldn’t play the”Them” version because some bishop asshole didn’t like “she went up to my room” so the Shadows filled the gap.
PaulWartenberg2016
Libraries keep copies of the textbooks as Course Reserves on their reference shelves. But you have to ask, leave DNA samples for tracking purposes, and if you mark in any of them THEY WILL SEND THE LIBRARY NINJAS AFTER YOU.
Now, to all of you parents sending your kids to college: REMIND THEM LIBRARIES EXIST. and have your college libraries order my books for their shelves! It’s good business for me… /owstophittingme
raven
@Immanentize: Ha, Vic is a good buddy, he may be here for this garden party! How the Method Actors have fallen. I actually left Chicago in 66 for the green machine and returned to Urbana in 69.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Anoniminous:
This is where classrooms need to teach from the JSTOR and EBSCO databases.
AND TELL YOUR KIDS LIBRARIANS CAN HELP THEM FIND THOSE JOURNAL ARTICLES!!!
Major Major Major Major
@PaulWartenberg2016: Yep. Libraries (especially e-reserves) is how I got through grad school! Remind your kids they exist (and librarians, too! There are also departmental librarians, subject experts, and so forth. Libraries are great. /biased).
schrodinger's cat
@Anoniminous: I speak of intro and intermediate chemistry, physics and math books.
Anoniminous
@Major Major Major Major:
That was nice. Having multiple decades along multiple axis of experience with Academia … it is also surprising.
:-)
Iowa Old Lady
@Eric U.: You can make a lot of money from writing a textbook if it’s used in big introductory classes. One of my ISU colleagues who wrote an intro tech writing textbook told me she made more money from the book than from her salary. The book was used on a lot of basic report writing classes that engineering and science students were required to take. OTOH, two other colleagues wrote a book on document design. That made almost no money because it was for a small, specialized audience.
Hungry Joe
For my freshman Intro to Psych class the prof assigned his own textbook, along with a paperback “workbook.” It was a long time ago so I don’t remember what they cost, but they weren’t cheap — and there were 900 students in the class. (Big public university.) Even then I knew it was a scam.
I went to college pretty sure I was going to major in psychology. Then I took that class. Then I was no longer a psych major.
Prescott Cactus
Quick cool champagne, beer or wine.
Put bottle (or can) into a container as tall as the desired chilled beverage and then fill with ice and “just enough” water.
Gently spin / twirl the bottle around so that the spinning slowly exposes all the contents of the bottle to the icy water solution. Only takes a few minutes.
$15 a credit hour for Community College when I started. . .
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Iowa Old Lady: Oh, we know, but what’s the alternative? When possible I use open source textbooks (algebra based physics from openstax is good) I find bundles when possible, and online homework systems like mylab&mastering and Connect frequently come with online text. I’ll allow students to use the previous edition of the text (again with online homework, the order of problems in the book doesn’t matter), but in our community college the price of textbooks can easily exceed tuition cost.
Major Major Major Major
@Anoniminous: Oh, definitely. These three guys were class acts.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@schrodinger’s cat: The fuck you say.
Anoniminous
@PaulWartenberg2016:
I agree. The kicker is they have to have the basics to make use of the material.
I don’t know what the answer(s) is (are) but the way we teach STEM is obsolete. Can’t waste the K-12 years teaching, essentially, nothing then force-feed in five or six classes at university and expect ’em to have a grasp of their field.
Hungry Joe
The main and undergrad libraries at Berkeley only had a couple of copies of a textbook and maybe a copy or two of, say, an assigned novel; you had to be really lucky to get one. After a couple of years I thought to check the Berkeley PUBLIC library. Apparently nobody else did. I saved a lot of dough that way.
Iowa Old Lady
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I absolutely agree. It sounds like you do everything you can to ease the cost for students, but at some point, they just get screwed.
maeve
@Major Major Major Major:
yep – new edition racket plus electronic supplements that mean you need a new book with the code for the electronic supplements. Book can cost $150 now. OTOH – if you do eBook only w/ electronic supplements it can be “only” $70 or so. The electronic supplements can actually be very helpful (adaptive homework that lets students practice and learn etc)
Pogonip
Wow. I took a couple of classes back in the 90’s, when college was still optional, and was appalled at the price of the books then. And now you have no choice.
Anoniminous
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree in fields where not much fundamental work is being done intro textbooks are worth keeping.
Major Major Major Major
@Anoniminous: computer science FTW
D58826
When I was in college the book store was mostly text books with a corner for mugs, t-shirts, etc. A few years back was in the book store at Va. Tech with the young Hokie. Had to look for the text books. They were back in the corner. The rest of the store was clothes, furniture, photos, dishes, cups, baby diapers, books by the coach, etc. all with the VT logo. And the place was packed mostly with parents stocking up on this stuff.
Iowa Old Lady
@D58826: I don’t know the situation at VT, but in Iowa, the Board of Regents made it illegal so spend tuition dollars on anything other than education. I suppose you could define “education” in a lot of ways, but what ISU did was demand that a lot of operations be self supporting. The book store was one. Others were parking, dorms, and food service. That may have had an effect on what the bookstore carried.
rikyrah
Mark Kirk on Iran payment: Obama acting like ‘drug dealer in chief’
By Tal Kopan, CNN
Updated 2:45 PM ET, Sun August 21, 2016
Washington (CNN) – Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk criticized President Barack Obama for delivering money to the Iranian government in coordination with the release of Americans being held prisoner there — saying he was “acting like the drug dealer in chief.”
The comments came in a sit-down last week with the editorial board of The State Journal-Register, according to the Illinois paper’s political writer.
Anoniminous
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m sitting here, trying to be nice, so I’ll just say “LOL”
And leave it at that.
(ETA: I am now working in A-Life and get to deal with – lucky me – Ph.d. CompSci folks on a regular basis. The experience has not been wonderful although it has been educational.)
raven
Well, I didn’t have to worry about missing the game of the century!
FlyingToaster
@Corner Stone: Brady sliced his hand open Thursday afternoon with a pair of scissors.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@dmsilev:
About every third or fourth semester, I’d say. You can rent books now. Amazon is cheaper, but I don’t like supporting that nearly monolithic enterprise.
Kenneth Kohl
@Iowa Old Lady: IOL, it’s never too “anything” for wine
divF
@Hungry Joe:
Novels ? You read novels ?
Seriously, one other resource for much of literature is Project Gutenberg. Anything written before the advent of The Mouse is available there. If you insist of paper, there is still the old standby of Dover paperbacks.
In tech books, one of the other counter-scams back in the day was Asian (mainly Taiwan, I think) knockoffs. A factor of 10 cheaper. Now, there are bootleg pdfs out there.
Major Major Major Major
@Anoniminous: I meant in terms of fields where the fundamentals were laid out a while ago and don’t change much.
CS people can be hit or miss, just like every other expert. But worse. I had dinner with one last night who had some very interesting points about truth in grammar semantics, and a colleague of his who was insufferable and did not.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Immanentize: I taught for 14 years. I tried to choose inexpensive texts. Professors, IMO, should be aware of costs.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah. Some of my professors had a copy of the required textbook at the university library on two-hour checkout, so the book would almost always be available without us having to buy it for those of us who could ill afford it. I appreciated that.
Renting the kindle version from Amazon was also a possibility for some books. Cheaper than buying, if nothing else.
But yeah, the whole textbook scam’s a racket. Like college in general, really.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@FlyingToaster: huh…was he trying to maybe let the air out of something?
Joe Falco
Be glad if the course of study is not art or architecture. The cost of supplies will be a constant drain.
RSA
For one of the undergrad courses I teach, I’ve had two favorite textbooks. One has simply aged, with the material being correct but in areas that aren’t as relevant 12 years later; the other went out of print. I’ve tried a dozen textbooks for this course over the time I’ve been teaching it (a long time), but for the past couple of years I’ve pointed my students to online material and tried to pull it all together in my lectures. That’s not ideal; I’m thinking about putting together a textbook that does what I want for the course. That will actually be a lot of work. I’ll make it an open source product of some kind in the end, to save others the effort, and I’ll hope my colleagues pick it up, but I can understand some of the reasons why this doesn’t happen as often as it might.
?BillinGlendaleCA
When I started college I went shopping for texts with my dad and my cousin(who was visiting us). My dad gave me 2 twenties for my books, my cousin said, “unk that won’t by one book” and gave me a hundred. I think that barely covered my first quarter’s books. This was back in the late 70’s.
Twenty years later, the wife and I went book shopping with the kid for her first quarter’s books. I think the total was close to $400; the wife was shocked.
Hungry Joe
@divF: Lit classes. A LOT of novels.
Keith P.
Finally got off my ass and did a bunch of prep for red beans and rice in the future (vacuum-bagged and frozen) as well as some in the present. I’m pretty burned out on dicing veggies, but everything is in the pot…nothing left but mashing some of the beans and cooking up some rice.
Miss Bianca
@smintheus: I love how the drummer suddenly whips out a trumpet at the end. Sheer magic!
Major Major Major Major
@divF: It was Thailand IIRC.
You don’t read novels? D:
Jacel
@schrodinger’s cat: Several years ago I was very glad to see that Dover had reprinted a textbook I had in the 1970s that was one of the best books on music I ever read. I’m glad I had a chance to thank the author after a concert in Berkeley.
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486250296.html
ruemara
Tell me about it. I put myself through school. My mom gave me $200 for my NYU application and that was it. Those textbook costs were brutal and for an art major, every damned item costs an arm and a leg. the worst
KlareCole
@father pussbucket: I have been surprised too. Not his usual ‘on top of it style.’
Juju
What kind of biscotti?
KlareCole
@raven: Really sorry to hear that Raven. I’m east of Huntinton in KY. Been some bad bike accidents lately. It is hard to lose a close friend.
satby
@Immanentize: They played at one of my high school dances. Yes, even with Chaka Khan singing lead. Just before that song hit big.
Why yes, I am old ?
redshirt
How do colleges and universities get away with collusion of this nature? Not just on text books but tuition and every other expense? And this has been going on now for 30 years at a steady rate.
satby
@rikyrah: Good thing that mf-er is going down.
EBT
Never buy books from the bookstore. Always buy paperback foreign market editions. Most of the books sold to HK are English language, as are the Australian and UK ones. Don’t pay an extra hundred bucks for a shitty cardboard cover.
KlareCole
Betty, you bring back memories. We live in a college town, the last week has been full of seeing the students burst back on the scene. Over the weekend our daughter was here visiting. 19 years ago we started her off to college. Books were outrageous then, they would turn my hair white today. You have had lots of great tips here. I probably don’t really have to tell you how worth it it all is. Our daughter got a terrific job in a Big 10 school as a fund raising administrator, with her art degree, of all things. She still pays some loan on a couple semesters for which she first blew our school money on touring the country in a VW pop top with her cute boyfriend. It was 35K (at UK) a year then, including what she earned at the family business. I don’t know how people do it now. But I know it was the most pivotal years of her life and gave her a start far beyond what she would have had without it. Just saying, sympathizing.
Miss Bianca
@Juju: are you making the biscotti, or purchasing them?
geg6
@redshirt:
Do you have any idea how much it costs to hire good faculty and staff? To provide all the extras that students and families expect, like cops, gyms, wellness centers, medical and counseling staff, activities, decent dorms and food, etc., etc., etc.? We’re a major research flagship state university with 24 campuses and we only get 8% of our budget from the state. We have to have a way to pay for it all if the state keeps slashing their share.
Juju
@Miss Bianca: I make them, but I was wondering if Betty was making or buying and what kind. I’m always interested in biscotti recipes. I have an almond biscotti recipe and a esspesso pecan recipe. I make the almond biscotti more often.
Tripod
Housing costs are bullshit and eat up so much of a collegians spend. Land Grant and Normal university geographic distribution don’t match American demographic distribution and the urban state Us are all trying too hard to be the next UCLA. Even the local JUCOs present access issues to first generation attendees.
cckids
@hitchhiker:
This. Though the most infuriating book buy for me will always be the edition of the Bible my son had to buy for a freshman-level Western Civ class. $125 bucks. For a book most kids have/can get free. Because it had to be JUST that edition, with exactly those footnotes.
As though freshman West.Civ students need some cutting-edge biblical research. Bastards.
redshirt
@geg6: I’m sure. I also know that Harvard’s endowment is a gazillion dollars and yet they’re still charging what is up to today? 60K a year in just tuition?
Being a natural paranoid, I’ve long thought both the expectation that everyone needs to go to college and college costs being exorbitant is just a way to bind young people into the system. Since, once you get out, you either work for the Bank directly or indirectly via loans.
Anoniminous
@Anoniminous:
Or not.
There’s a January 2016 paper saying the writers of the December 2015 paper screwed-up their analysis.
Mike J
@redshirt:
If your family makes less than $65k, you pay nothing. If they make $65-150k, you pay 10% of what they earn. Above that, about $65k for tuition+room+board, Pretty good deal.
Uncle Cosmo
@raven: Oh man, that stings, just when you think things are on the upswing life blindsides you. You’re in my thoughts, brother.
workworkwork
@Ryan: I’m currently developing an undergrad programming course with no textbook. (The software and frameworks we’re using were just released a bit over a year ago.)
There are books on part of the subject but they don’t present it in the way we want so I’m working with online documentation from the developers and my own content.
CaseyL
@geg6: When I heard about book rentals, I at first thought they were a huge rip-off. I’ve changed my mind.
My relatives who went to college, my friends who went to college, and I who went to a few colleges: we all bought our textbooks, and if we couldn’t sell them afterward, we all kept them. For years. Decades. Maybe we’d look something up in them once or twice in all that time. But mostly they’d take up shelf space and gather dust.
Until we moved, or decided to clean out the bookcase once and for all – and then we didn’t know what to do with them. With very few exceptions — foundational books in the sciences and law, mostly – textbooks are useless after less than a year. They were long since outdated, not even a local library would want them – so they’d go into the recycling bin.
Renting the textbook makes a LOT more sense. Costs less than buying, and you’re not stuck with the damn thing afterward. Sure, the publisher makes a lot of money renting the same single book over and over again – so what? It’s still less expensive for the student.
Gravenstone
Just as an exercise, I looked up my primary in major text (Organic Chemistry, Solomons, et. al). It was 3rd edition when I bought it in 1983. It’s only up to 12th edition as of this past January, so nine edition increments in 33 years isn’t horrible. A bit over $100 for the ebook version, $210 for paperback and $300 for hardcover. So yeah, not exactly cheap anymore. I think mine ran about $80 back in the day.
JoyfulA
@dmsilev: I copyedited some textbooks way back when. The minor changes–chap. 3 switched with chap. 7, some references added, a paragraph added here and there–didn’t warrant a new edition in my mind; making students buy an expensive new book instead of a cheap used one was the obvious reason.
So I quit doing immoral work.
Jado
@Corner Stone:
If you need a physical book, go to the school book store and write down the ISBNs for the textbooks you need. The bookstore will PROBABLY have the textbook you need for each class, and they will have the list of which book goes with which class. Write down or photograph the ISBNs, and hit the internet. I saved on average 25% off the bookstore cost. Still ridiculously expensive, but every bit helps
Jado
Example:
Calculas textbook – Amazon has a new book for $247.60. Their listing has the ISBN-13, and when you enter the ISBN into google, here’s what comes up
https://www.google.com/search?q=978-1285057095&oq=978-1285057095&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
For $12.30, you gan get a PDF of the textbook. That is 5% of its new physical book cost. Not too bad.
If you absolutely need a physical book, amazon.uk has it for 57 pounds, about $75. With shipping, it will probably still be less than $100. That would be 40% of the full cost.
NEVER buy a book from the bookstore.