I currently work in the synthetic diamond industry for a company called Us-synthetic. We create diamond cutter inserts for oil drilling drill bits. This company is big on Lean Fundamentals. I went through a lean course at work and have applied the things that I learned here on a daily basis. I recently found out from my boss that they teach lean manufacturing at the university I go to. After looking into it I found that its possible to get 16 credit hours from that knowledge. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of people getting college credit for what they’ve learned and applied at work. It is defiantly worth looking into. Talk to your counselor.
There’s is a great article titled 5 ways to Earn college Credit for Career and Life Experience. They give several suggestions for different ways to earn college credit.
I want to make the blog easier to navigate. If you go to the top of the page there is a section that says Textbook Strategies. This section is where I will post ways to save on textbooks, avoid having to purchase textbooks or even different ways that I’ve found to make money on textbooks. All of your opinions are valued! I feel like it would be awesome if the site became a forum on how to get back at publishers.
Other sections that I’ve included on the page are under categories. There are different ways to get past having to take as many classes by getting more credits or testing out of classes. Again all comments and suggestions are valued and will help people out. So comment if you’ve got your own strategy that might help someone.
There are some that might argue with me about how e-books are less expensive, better for the environment, and weigh a lot less. However, It’s not necessarily the least expensive, paper is biodegradable and you might not even need to take your textbooks to class with you. In fact I’ve noticed that most textbooks are rarely used in class.
Lets talk about price differences. When looking into buying a textbook last semester I found out something that was very interesting. Online I found I could purchase a brand new textbook for one of my classes at about $100. I then did a bit more searching and saw that I could purchase the down loadable e-book for my Ipad at $80. This was upsetting. Here are a few reasons why. First, publishers claim that a major reason for textbooks being so expensive is because they cost so much to make. This proved to me that the paper obviously isn’t that major after all. I mean really? I’m seeing only a $20 difference in initial price and I can’t sell the e-book to anyone to make any money back.
Now lets cover the “better for the environment” claim. I really doubt that an ipad, laptop, iphone or even a Kindle can biodegrade as quickly as a paper textbook. The only thing even arguable is that we cut down more trees.
If your professors aren’t going to use the textbook that you buy in class then it doesn’t matter if you have a backpack full of textbooks that weighs ten million pounds. You can just leave your heavy textbook at home on the shelf. However, if you have an occasional class that the teacher uses the textbook often maybe it would be worth it for you to look into buying an e-book.
Lots of people hear the word scholarship and automatically tune out. Reasons they may tune out might be because they don’t get very good grades, or maybe they don’t want to spend the time to apply because they don’t think there is anyway that they would ever receive a scholarship. Whatever your reason may be, let me help you change your mind. Scholarships indeed are awarded for academics and for having a high GPA, however most universities have thousands, if not millions of dollars to award for a number of different reasons. Private scholarships are out there waiting to be given out. For example when my wife was first starting college she applied for a number of different scholarships…She ended up not paying for her first four semesters of college due to scholarships. She received a local one from a credit union for her service she had done while in high school. She also received a private scholarship from a lady who selected her because she liked that she had grown up on a farm, and figured that made her a hard worker. Because of these two things she decided to give her money for books and tuition. There are scholarships available for people of different races and ethnicity’s. There are scholarships available for sports, service, different majors offer scholarships, and the list goes on and on. So next semester don’t find yourself brushing off applying for scholarships. Just apply!
I wanted to make a video tutorial on how to sell on Amazon. I found this video very useful for people wanting to sell things on Amazon. Just apply the same technique with your used textbooks and you’ll be set.
Video made by HackTheTouch on youtube.
There is a question all of us have when we start a new semester in our college experience. Why are textbooks so expensive? The answer that publishers want you to believe is that it is much more expensive to produce a text book than it is to produce one of your favorite books from a bookstore. I find it hard to believe that when a company produces a textbook in bulk that it costs 10 times more than a regular book. Textbooks have charts, graphs and there is a lot of time that goes into them initially, but these companies are making new editions almost every year with very little change in the textbook.
What is their justification? Publishers will use the price that students pay for used books as a basis to price their textbooks. The problem here is that students don’t get to always pick the edition or the textbook for the class. The professors are the ones that do that. So, unfortunately this puts a lot of power in the hands of the publishers which makes it difficult for students to even purchase a used textbook.
Here’s some interesting figures. The National Association of College stores stated that about 33 cents per dollar goes into the production of the textbook and 11.8 cents for the authors royalties. Why are textbooks so expensive? Because publishers regulate what to sell textbooks for.
As I was sitting in class I eve’s dropped on a conversation between two people. They were talking about purchasing a textbook for a class, where the book would only be used once every other week. Immediately the thought popped in my head, “I hate when professors require you to buy a textbook that you hardly use.” As I continued to listen to their conversation I heard this very useful secret from one of them; “Just use the Library. I check mine out before class when we need it.” This was a shock to the spine for a student like me that doesn’t like spending money on textbooks.
Point – Instead of buying a textbook that you hardly use, go to the library and check the book out for class or when you need it.
A couple semesters ago I happened to buy a history book on a website for $25.00. When the end of the semester rolled around I figured I had only paid $25 for it so I probably wouldn’t be able to sell it back for anything. I got on Amazon and did a search for the book. I found out that I had a couple of options with Amazon. The first option was that I could list my textbook on their website and when it sold they would keep a small percentage and transfer the money directly into my bank account. I paid for the shipping costs of getting it to the buyer. The second option was for them to buy it back from me, they would pay the shipping, and when they received my textbook they would give me amazon credit for the book. In the case of the history book it was in my best interest to list it for a few days and see if I could at least sell it. I was able to list it for 67 dollars, and happened to sell it within a couple of hours of listing it. Cha-ching I actually didn’t go in the whole for a textbook, but instead made money!
Textbook Ripoff 