Textbooks are too expensive

Posted on March 8, 2009
Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment

When I finished high school and went to University, I had to pay tuition fees. In Canada, tuition fees in the nineties used to be very affordable for those fortunate enough to be citizens. I am a Canadian citizen and as such my tuition fees were about $2500 per year. Not bad compared to tuition fee costs today. However, I remember that my biggest expense after tuition was my textbooks. Textbooks are insanely expensive for no good reason.

Most textbooks would cost $100-150. If a student is taking 5 courses a semester, then he/she must spend over $1000 a year just for textbooks. Students are better off buying used books and reselling them at the end of the year to recover some of their money. Alas, textbook publishers have thought of a way to get around that and squeeze even more money from poor students. Every few years, they print new editions of the books forcing students to buy the new ones and in effect turning the old editions in to having zero value. Students who happen to be using the old edition just as the new one goes to print are at the worst possible position since they can never sell their books to the new students.

Our entire society is built around the notion that we have to earn a University education in order to succeed in life; this is not true but it is definitely popular belief. But if true, why the heck do we make it so expensive for people to study? Education should be free for everyone who wants to earn one. Education should not come with a high cost and it should not be available only to the wealthy. The days that only the aristocrats could earn an education are long gone. It is about time that governments take action making education available to all.

Bookmark: