College textbooks are very expensive....

[Kelli in TN]

and I realize that some families may have problems paying for the required textbooks.

I wish there were an easy solution.

Oh wait, there is an easy solution.

Go to your local college and look around in the cafeteria. Try to choose a small, intimate college with decent security and a high level of trust.

Find a student who has laid her backpack down while getting her dinner. Discretely check through her backpack and see if you and she are taking any similar classes. Quietly and quickly remove the textbooks you need.

Really, it is okay. Well, it did wipe out her bookstore balance to replace the 4 required books for her English class. But shoot, what is a remaining balance for, if not to replace books unwittingly donated to sneaky peers? And at least the needy student was not taking Western Civ. too, those books were even more expensive than the English books. And at least this wasn't some low-down thieving person who took her personal property from her backpack. No, just someone who really needed English books!

Isn't this lame? Isn't it a sad day when the best you can say is "Thank God he wasn't taking Western Civ?":(

[PariSarah]

Oh, Kelli, yuck. May whoever it was flunk every class in which s/he is using stolen books.

I'm sorry for your dd.

Isn't this lame? Isn't it a sad day when the best you can say is "Thank God he wasn't taking Western Civ?":(

But that was really, really funny.

[GVA]

I began at a mid-sized Christian liberal art/business school, and it happened there. I tranferred to a small, selective state all science/engineering school, and it happened there (especially with calculus books).

Now I've been a part-time professor at a small community college for nine years, and it's been an issue the whole time I've been there. Recently someone threw a big rock through the window of a car and made off with a laptop and purse too. For the classes I teach, the books are $160, no small change!

Arg...

[Caroline]

My mom taught at an inner city HBCU when I was growing up. One of her students was mugged on the way home from school. When she didn't have enough money for the mugger, he set her books and notes on fire.

My mom replaced all of her textbooks and notes.

Caroline

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

and I realize that some families may have problems paying for the required textbooks.

I wish there were an easy solution.

Oh wait, there is an easy solution.


Oh, Kelli, I'm so sorry.

Likely, the thief sold the books for ready cash on ebay or half.com or some other online textbook sales place. Current textbooks are just easy money on these sites.

It's like leaving cash around, leaving textbooks unattended. We get warnings about it all the time.

Yuck. Like I said, I'm so sorry.

[Kelli in TN]

Oh, Kelli, I'm so sorry.

Likely, the thief sold the books for ready cash on ebay or half.com or some other online textbook sales place. Current textbooks are just easy money on these sites.

It's like leaving cash around, leaving textbooks unattended. We get warnings about it all the time.

Yuck. Like I said, I'm so sorry.


I don't know about that. He or she was very selective, taking only the English class books (which were bought used and looked used) and leaving behind her personal property, her Western Civ books (which were very, very expensive books and she had to buy them NEW so they were in incredible resaleable condition).

I honestly think this kid just needed English books. Maybe he or she squandered the book budget going clubbing and didn't want to tell Mom and Dad.

[Sandy in Indy]

Wow! I'm so sorry that happened. College books are incredibly expensive...I know. The last six semesters I've helped my dd shop for hers. Takes a lot of time to bypass the campus bookstore, but we've had great success shopping online, and she's saved a ton of money. That's hard to do, though, when class has already started and you need the books NOW. How bold of the thief to take the time to rummage through for just what he/she needed.

[Audrey]

I had books stolen twice when I was at university. Both times, it was the uber-expensive science books. I strongly suspect the theives don't actually use them. They most likely sell them back for cash.

[PariSarah]

Can I ask a silly question, Kelli? Does her college have a decent library system, and do they do "reserves"?

Our system allows professors to place books they're assigning on a reserve system, where you can only take the books out for three hours at a time. (And the late penalties are enormous--a dollar an hour, I think.) That way, even if the library only has one copy of the book, a lot of students can use it. And for us, it's made the difference between . . . .well, it's been a big help. When we were in coursework, we would pick one book per class and buy it (the book that we were most likely to use for a major paper), and for the rest we used library copies.

Is there anything like that at her college? Could she/would she use it? It's a little more inconvenient than owning your own, but if you're talking a hundred dollars worth of books or more for each class, it's kinda worth the hassle. And if there's not anything like that, it may even be worth grumbling at the admin. until they set one up.

[Maria from IN]

It's getting worse and worse every day, you know.

First, the campus bookstore robs us, then the students.

The campus library here won't even keep textbooks for reference anymore because people would check them out and not come back!

One young man was mugged the other day, at 2:00 in the afternoon! They took his wallet and beat the snot out of him. It's just not safe anywhere around a campus anymore.:eek:

[WTMindy]

That is such a bummer!!:mad:

[Anne/Ankara]

That's terrible, Kelli! We just bought my son his first college text, an Environmental Science paperback for a mere $50. But on the next shelf were the biology books, for about $180 each. Can you imagine! Wow...

[Kelli in TN]

Can I ask a silly question, Kelli? Does her college have a decent library system, and do they do "reserves"?

Our system allows professors to place books they're assigning on a reserve system, where you can only take the books out for three hours at a time. (And the late penalties are enormous--a dollar an hour, I think.) That way, even if the library only has one copy of the book, a lot of students can use it. And for us, it's made the difference between . . . .well, it's been a big help. When we were in coursework, we would pick one book per class and buy it (the book that we were most likely to use for a major paper), and for the rest we used library copies.

Is there anything like that at her college? Could she/would she use it? It's a little more inconvenient than owning your own, but if you're talking a hundred dollars worth of books or more for each class, it's kinda worth the hassle. And if there's not anything like that, it may even be worth grumbling at the admin. until they set one up.

I don't think they have a reserve system. I really don't know how good their library is.

Besides, I know she would rather have her own, especially English as she is an English major.

[Tressa]

Oh, Kelli, that just stinks! I can't believe the nerve of some people. :(

I know how you feel when it comes to textbooks. We just dropped $400 for textbooks for my husband. He had spend $100 on a textbook about basic computer applications which he uses everyday at work. That was highly irritating, but it is required for graduation and he graduates in May. So, what are you going to do?

[SFP]

Not all colleges have textbook reserves, unfortunately, even if they have a reserved reading area.

Since the texts were for an English class, the library would probably have books that contain all the material that was in them, but it'd be a bear trying to gather it all together. I'd probably check out just enough to get by until I could order a used copy from Amazon marketplace or the like.

[Mom2legomaniacs]

That stinks! I don't understand that kind of thing.

When I was in college and dh and I had already met and were dating, he was taking a class in which there were only about 5 students. He had left his book in the classroom prior to class so that he didn't have to carry them with him to some other lecture or something. It was stolen.
Fast forward a couple of days to a used college bookstore off-campus. There was this woman in his class. She was about 6 ft tall and model gorgeous. She was also very direct and could be intimidating. She walked into the bookstore and saw this guy holding this text for resale. She asks him about it. He says something about taking the class and dropping it. She said, Hmm, interesting. I am in that class. There are 5 of us in the class one of whom had his book stolen this week. You will give me that book right now and I'll let you walk out of here! So, dh got his book back! She was a hoot telling that story!

[Kelli in TN]

Not all colleges have textbook reserves, unfortunately, even if they have a reserved reading area.

Since the texts were for an English class, the library would probably have books that contain all the material that was in them, but it'd be a bear trying to gather it all together. I'd probably check out just enough to get by until I could order a used copy from Amazon marketplace or the like.

If there were time to spare we'd have done that. As it was, the money we put on her bookstore account was more than she needed this semester. We left the excess there for her, just in case she needed something. So she used that and it cost her another $10 out of pocket. In this case she had more money than she did time. It would have been nice to have that hundred and something bucks to carry over to next year, but it's okay.

Lesson learned, she will not be so trusting again. She will either hang on to her backpack or get a friend to watch it for her while she totes her tray of nearly-like-a-food-substance across the caf.

[sdWTMer]

That is just plain wrong!

http://smileydatabase.com/s/180.gif

[mommylaw]

Ouch! That totally stinks. I'm glad you are able to find some humor in it.