Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

With 'Access Codes,' Textbook Pricing More Complicated Than Ever

Posted by timothy on from the google-rms-right-to-read dept.

jyosim writes "Some see it as the latest ploy by textbook publishers to kill the used book market: 'access codes' for online supplements for course work. In some cases professors require students to purchase these codes in order to even see the required homework. One U. of Maine's student's struggle to find a reasonably priced textbook demonstrates the limits the new publisher practices put on students, but some argue that ultimately the era of digital course materials will be better for student learning."

6 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Businessmen by Tommy+Bologna · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They hate that you have the advantages they did in school. Now that they've crossed the bridge, it must be burned.

    1. Re:Businessmen by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's the baby boomers. They grew up in the drug-fucked 'free love' Sixties,

      And?

      got free education,

      So did my kids. So did you. College? Nope, we had to pay, too.

      raped and pillaged the environment,

      We were the generation that got the Clean Air and Clean Water acts passed. It was our parents and grandparents' generations that raped the environment; actually, not OUR parents but the rich kids' parents... who are now fighting for the end of the environmental regs we fought for.

      You sound like an unemployed white racist who blames blacks for his troubles and the black who blames whites for his poverty, when it's the rich of both races that are to blame. It's not my generation, it's the rich of all generations. Mitt Romney's "I like to fire people" isn't an opinion held by many boomers.

      The "bugger you Jack, I've got mine" isn't my generation's attitude, that's Mitt Romney and Donald Trump's income level's attitude.

      You're fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong war.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    2. Re:Businessmen by The+Second+Horseman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, but Ryan isn't a baby boomer. He was born in 1970, so that either puts him on the tail end of Gen X if you've extended past the "original" timeframe used for that term, or else early GenY. As a slightly-older GenX, I couldn't stand this kind of jackass 25 years ago, and I can't stand them now. He's clearly in love with himself, and how clever he thinks he is, and he somehow doesn't think he's relied on other people to get there. And let's not forget that he's only managed to get a couple of pieces of meaningless legislation (naming a post office and lowering excise tax on arrow shafts) through Congress in 14 years..

      Hell, he even thinks he's brilliant enough to reconcile Catholicism and Objectivism. That's a level of mental contradiction that's only possible if you're shallow or delusional - or you're just a power-hungry, cynical political hack who doesn't have any real principles.

    3. Re:Businessmen by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think so, as the generation that went through the depression and WWII tried to work together, not constantly stab each other in the backs.

      My grandma talked about how the neighbors and her would get together to make "hobo soup" so that those traveling the rails would have a bite to eat when they stopped in their little town, and in return, without asking mind you, she never had to split a single rick of wood and every chore that needed doing would be done by a hobo. The entire town looked after each other and if someone got sick or hurt the others would come round to help them get back on their feet again.

      It went from that to a serious "Fuck you I'm entitled and you're not" attitude which i truly believe came from being spoiled rotten. The previous generation had suffered and struggled and during the boom years of the 50s was generous to a fault with their kids, only the kids just took the cash and not the lessons to appreciate what they had and help those who had less. If you'd have pushed a Gordon Gecko style character in the 40s and 50s he'd have been looked down on as a piece of self centered trash, their kids looked at him as a hero and a perfect example of their ethos.

      Sad really but that's just how it turned out and now as they get old they scream and whine and demand million dollar treatments to keep their asses from the grave just a few more months.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Re:college is becoming a cash grab and we need bet by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, as I've said before we need to uncouple job training and university study again.

    University studies were meant for people that wanted to learn and study. Right now the whole meme is that you go to university to get a better job. There is nothing wrong with that, but that isn't what universities were created for. Not everyone should go to a University and there should be no shame in that.

  3. Businessmen my ass by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is a 'wealth' gap? Who decides there is a certain amount of wealth that each age group is supposed to have, what are those numbers?

    Nice strawman. It's not about "deciding" how much each group is supposed to have (in a moral/deontological ethical way). It's about the gap between the two groups that is measurable (and thus comparable/quantifiable) accross the decades. The gap is there, it's measurable, it's obvious, and it requires explaining. Yours is not an explanation by any stretch of the definition. Furthermore, you are asking "who" "decides" how much each group has. That same question begets the following one: who decided that the income gap must be greater than the ones in prior decades/generations?

    Ok, so those in the 55+ demographic are the ones who started and built back in the 70's/80's many of the recognized companies that exist today and in doing so they made some good money. That is exactly what they intended to do.

    This would be nice and dandy if these were the very first folks in the history of the US who made up companies that made money. Alas, they were not. There were businesses and businessmen before them, quite successful and their companies still exist today. And yet, the generational income gap present at the times preceeding the Baby Boomers was never the way it is now. Hand waving is not a valid argument.

    Wonder what their incomes looked like 20-30 years ago when they were building their businesses (either as early employees of founders)? I'd be willing to guess

    Why guess? Verify.

    their incomes were not much different (in 70's/80's dollars) to today's youth, but their standards of living were probably lower.

    So if their income weren't that different from today's youth (which is not true), and their standards of living were lower (they were), then the income gap as measured today is greater than what it was in the past, say, as a function of the decade in which the measurements took place.

    So to the 18-35 crowd who hasn't made as much money I'd ask, where are the companies that you started?

    Red herring. Not every Baby Boomer was an enterpreneur, and yet the gap between the average Boomer and the average Gen X/Y is greater than the gap that same Boomer experienced with respect to his then senior. Ergo, enterpreneurship is not a factor. It is if you want to present a fallacy as a logical argument, though.

    Where are the years of hard work you put in building wealth?

    Where were the years of hard work the Baby Boomers put when they were young that resulted in a narrower income gap with relation to their then seniors, narrower with respect to the currently observed income gap?