Word: coursepack
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...just wanted to thank The Crimson Staff for its excellent editorial on the outrageously high cost of coursepacks (“Our Wallets in Their Hands,” Sept. 21). I just had to pay $154 for a coursepack for Social Analysis 52 after already spending more than $100 on bound books for the same course. Meanwhile, I’m saving a huge amount of money in Ec 1010a, which has posted all of its suggested articles online for free and therefore has no coursepack. If only more professors followed Ec 1010a’s lead...
...high cost of textbooks and coursepacks can be blamed on a number of factors. Textbooks include more and more extras every year, like CD-ROMs and accompanying websites, which raise their cost. Fully 80 percent of the textbook market is controlled by just five publishers, limiting competition and driving prices up as high as students can bear. Furthermore, the very people who choose textbooks, namely professors, don’t bear their cost, providing them with little incentive to consider price as part of the academic equation. Though bells and whistles aren’t an issue, coursepack prices...
They clearly have a lot to learn. Students taking Moral Reasoning 28, taught by Buttenweiser University Professor Stanley Hoffman, will have to produce $227.25 before walking away with a copy of the coursepack (not to mention hundreds of dollars more to purchase the 14 additional required books for the course). The price of this coursepack is especially maddening considering many articles it contains, like Jessica Stern’s “The Protean Enemy,” are available for free through Harvard’s e-resources. Another Core, Historical Studies B-64, has a coursepack which will...
...success that Robert Putnam has had in reducing the price of his coursepack suggests that, with some effort, TFs and professors could save students substantial amounts of money. There are a number of simple ways that coursepacks can be made cheaper. Harvard already pays huge sums for copyrights on its online resources. Professors who incur copyright costs by including in their coursepacks newspaper or journal articles (almost invariably available through e-resources) can save students money simply by linking to the articles. And more than just articles are available online. Last year, Environmental Science and Public Policy 10 did without...
...course, professors are not ultimately to blame for the outrageous prices of course materials today. And though the Coop seemingly has room to improve a few coursepack prices, the store actually makes its lowest margins on textbooks. Those really to blame for high textbook prices, textbook publishers, face only as much pressure to lower prices as students and professors can exert. This situation is unlikely to change anytime soon. However, through some of the simple steps outlined—using e-resources, submitting reading lists earlier, remaining compatible with old editions, and avoiding switching textbooks—professors...