 | | | | As a 2010 graduate of the City University of New York (Queens College represent!), I paid relatively affordable college tuition — about $5,000 a semester. But the monetary relief I felt, especially compared to friends at NYU and Yeshiva University paying top dollar, would always slip away at the beginning of each semester when I was given my list of textbooks.
The giant textbooks for math and science classes I barely passed, the dozens of paperbacks for my CompLit seminars, and the outdated communications books for my journalism major cost me at least $500 a semester. The whole thing was especially annoying because professors demanded the most recent versions, so I couldn't just pay $10 for last year's edition on Amazon. I will never forget the communal agony felt inside the college bookstore, nor will I ever get over the awkward bartering with friends for last semester's books. In 2017, I went to Columbia for grad school and couldn't believe I was confronted with these costs yet again — and at such an expensive institution, no less.
My rage about overpriced textbooks reignited this week after reading Gaby Del Valle's explainer on the absurd costs of textbooks. Gaby spoke with publishers, who argue for the books' price tags, and affordability advocates, who note the flaws in this economy. As one higher education director told her, "On a fundamental level, you shouldn't have to pay to do homework for a class you already paid tuition for."
—Chavie Lieber, senior reporter for The Goods
| | | | | | | The world of consumer culture is changing faster than ever. We're here to help you understand it. To make sure we're delivering on that mission with this newsletter, we want to hear from you. If you have a minute, we'd appreciate you taking this short survey. | | | | | The high cost of college textbooks, explained | | | |  | | Getty Images | | Hannah, a senior at a private university in New York City, can't think of a single semester when she bought all the books she needed for her classes. "Even when I was studying abroad," she said, "there was no way for me to get through the semester without dropping $500-plus on textbooks, which I couldn't afford." So she didn't buy them. That semester, Hannah, who asked that her name be withheld due to privacy reasons, found most of the books she needed on Scribd, an e-book subscription service. "I used my free trial to do pretty much all my work for the semester and to take screenshots of things so I could access everything once the trial ended," she said. If she couldn't find them there, then she would do without. Hannah's tuition and housing is covered by scholarships, but she has to use student loans to pay for her health insurance; she pays for other necessities, including textbooks, out of pocket. In other words, her generous financial aid package isn't enough to cover the essentials. Her situation is far from unusual: A 2014 report by the Public Interest Research Groups found that two-thirds of surveyed students had skipped buying or renting some of their required course materials because they couldn't afford them. | | Read the rest of the story >> | | | | | | Why do we hate decaf so much? | | | |  | | Sarah Lawrence for Vox | | "Decaffeinated coffee is like a hooker who only wants to cuddle." Like many quotes on Instagram, this one is styled in a cutesy sans serif font and has the beigeness of a black-and-white image that's been reposted and refiltered dozens of times over. Below it are the hashtags #CaffeineAddict, #WorkingMomLife, and the clincher, #DeathBeforeDecaf. It's on the more offensive end of a spectrum made up of thousands of coffee-related quotes on Instagram that imply the poster would rather literally die before drinking a morning beverage that didn't contain caffeine. They range from the cutesy ("But first, coffee") to the self-deprecating ("I'm sorry for what I said before I had my coffee") to the vaguely threatening ("I drink coffee for your protection" or "Coffee: a magical substance that turns 'leave me alone or die' into 'good morning, honey!'"). There are coffee memes for moms, coffee memes for CrossFitters, for entrepreneurs, even ones for multilevel marketers. Scrolling through coffee hashtags on Instagram, you begin to suspect that the entire world is being held together with a single substance, that America actually does run on Dunkin'. | | Read the rest of the story >> | | | | | | More good stuff to read today | | | | | | |
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