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nuckles87 on 23 January 2012
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Kasz216 said:
kain_kusanagi said:
A better question is why do college students need buy new text books every year? What so drastically changes the fundamentals of a field of study that last year's text book must be completely replaced? No simply flyer with updates, no corrections from the professor, nope, most of the time they just reword a few paragraphs, move the chapters around a bit and print a new edition.

It's a total scam. And don't think it's going to change when things go digital. The only change will be no used book sales. You'll have just as many yearly editions, but you won't be able to turn your book in at the end of your class for a partial refund.

Oh and reading on any iOS device is terrible and just as much an eyestrain as reading on any LCD display. The Kindle has a great paper like screen, but it's far too small for a text book. If I was still in college I'd stick with regular paper books, my Android, and my gaming PC.


They have to buy new textbooks every year because they have differnet classes.

Different Textbook editions actually don't come out every year and most schools will stick with an older edition for a year or two after the new one comes out because of used textbook sales which are pretty important.

It's why unlike most things the price of textbooks goes up every year for a college bookstore.

The first year of a new edition is the cheapest the college bookstore will ever get it for... after that they'll jack up the price 25-50 bucks at a time.

I used to run shipping and receiving at a college bookstore and onetime we had a book go up so high in price it was actually costing us more then we were selling it for and it was after our "Price freeze" happened.


I've no idea whether your a student, but as a student of FAU I can confirm that new textbooks are introduced for most classes I've been in, typically at the end of each year. Sometimes it's every two years for some of the bigger books. But every time I don't have time to turn in my books at the end of the year, I find next semester that they aren't taking them anymore because they are "old editions".