From Pine View Farm

Texting while Gouging 0

In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Kevin Carey marvels at the magic of the text-book publishing industry, as nice a scam as anyone has yet devised. A nugget:

Calculus hasn’t changed much since Newton and Leibniz invented it in the 17th century. Yet there have been seven editions of James Stewart’s best-selling “Calculus” (list: $245.95), the profits from which allowed Mr. Stewart to build a $24 million home with its own concert hall. And you don’t need calculus to calculate how much money colleges make by charging hundreds of students sitting in a lecture hall standard tuition rates, minus the negligible cost of an adjunct lecturer standing in the well.

Back in the olden days, that figure would have been my textbook budget for two semesters–and I studied history, sociology, and other book-intensive subjects.

Read the rest and learn part of the reason that students a drowning in debt.

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