I distribute CD's of my lecture content, homeworks, old tests, etc. for just this reason. Many textbooks are now a hybrid of electronic and paper. The biggest reasons that texts are not completely electronic is that hyperlinks change and the difficulty in obtaining copyrights for so many different sources of material.

A lot of innovative professors have now flipped the teaching paradigm. Have the students look through the text and the easy content before class, have the professor lecture on the easy, intermediate, and difficult content, and then assign homework questions that address all levels. It is easier now to get into greater depth than it used to be.

"Most people would be shocked how small a percentage of the cost of running a university goes to faculty salaries."
not shocked at all. A bunch of buildings and administrative overhead. Just like with public education. It goes to prove the education establishment has lost its way overall and doesn't know what its real purpose to provide is. It's not in any sense part of the free market. that goes to private universities as well.
I'm sure your university does many things differently, t's one of the reasons why it's been growing fast. But when you read about people going on staff at universities and being paid alot of money for one class a semester or maybe a year (Paul Krugman anyone?) it's reasonable to question intent and competitiveness for students and taxpayers who have a stake in the institutions.

My brother-in-law does research at Mayo, and one of the reasons they have grad students is because they are much cheaper than hiring lab techs. I think if you add in their tuition, which they are not paying, it's double counting. The overhead numbers you are coming up with do not make sense in the private sector. These are exactly the sorts of numbers you hear about in huge govt projects and large, bloated corps. No start-up would get away with that.

j, I have no doubt you are one of the best professors in teaching today. Probably hugely under-valued-after all, you yourself have said you'd make more not teaching. But universities have not kept up with the times, technologically speaking. They still like to build huge monuments to themselves when most lectures should be taped, indexed, hyper-linked and distributed. Instead they entrench with their 19th century thinking of hallowed halls, like they think they're the Vatican.. why aren't all textbooks electronic in this day and age?

One of my best students is 55. Another of my best students is in his early 30's after having spent 10 years in the Navy Nuclear Power Program. Several of my grads are in the Navy Nuclear Power Program or are working for Norfolk Naval Shipyards (which is hiring right now). Hopefully I can visit you in NM in a future summer.

The market force that is not working is that textbooks do not cost MORE than they do, not less. I have estimated to write a textbook that I have already started, it will take me a full year (but spread out over time when I am doing other things). Because it is a specialized field that I teach, if I get the market penetration I expect, I am thinking that I will sell about 50,000 textbooks. Factoring in overhead and indirect costs, then it would cost me around $5 a book. On most textbooks, the authors will split around $25, with the publisher, store, government taxes getting the rest. Most textbooks have several authors. What if my sales don't meet expectations? If you think textbook prices are overvalued, then perhaps you are undervaluing all my time and effort into putting it together. I think you and db are probably undervaluing your own work as well. I would have gladly paid twice as much and probably much more than that for your excellent first novel. I feel like I got quite a bargain in reading your book.

There is a brake on what the university will charge, but it is not a stiff brake. If a university charges too much, students will go elsewhere. It breaks my heart to write a recommendation letter for an international student to go to my state-subsidized competition because of financial reasons. That has happened numerous times.

The grad students are far from free. Between their tuition + stipend, $40 K at most universities is a good number.

Most people would be shocked how small a percentage of the cost of running a university goes to faculty salaries. The biggest cost by far is the cost of making and maintaining the buildings. Food and housing income actually subsidize many of the amenities that students consistently ask for that cost more money than they realize. Of course, since they are not paying directly at the time of enrollment, their wants tend to exceed the money of the Bank of Mom and Dad.

Textbooks are a serious money loser for the authors. The number of people who buy the textbooks compared to the amount of time that the author puts in is pretty small. Faculty are discouraged from writing textbooks because of that.

Thank you Dr. Brenner but that was many years ago, in a different lifetime. I have used my knowledge from 1.5 years of Chem E. to do well in the Navy Nuclear Power Program and my electronics training has given me a career in the utility field as a controls technician and electrician. At 55, I am not sure I want to go back sitting in a classroom, even if I have a great instructor such as you.

and why do textbooks cost so much more than any other kind of book? That's a racket, and we all know it. Why aren't market forces at work there? Because student loans support $600 a semester in textbook costs per student. If the loans weren't there, those book costs would not be soaring higher than inflation would suggest.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04...

I'm not qualified, I just have experience and a little sense. It is a very simple observation: the university has no interest in whether or not the student can repay the loans so there is no brake on what the university will charge.

hey j, thanks for weighing in.
"Tuition + room and board costs the university $40-50 K per year. That really is a breakeven number."
Why? If I look at professor salaries I ask, for the first two years, most students are taking classes that are 101s-at a large state school that means they are 1 of 200 or more students sitting in that class. If they go to a "lab" associated with that class, they are taught by a grad student, who is being used as free labor. Of course I am referring to the basic liberal arts side, not to quality engineering programs. Even if the classes are excellent, the professor cost to student ratio for at least the first two years should be minimal considering most take a 16 credit hour schedule. Feeding and housing costs shouldn't be the university's business in the first place. and if they don't make money at it, why do many of them require you have to live on campus for the first year or two? Many large dorms are certainly not in the students' best interest to live in.

Do you want to teach finance at Florida Tech? You would fit in well, TheOldMan!

Wisconsin's chemical engineering department is one of the best. Perhaps your Gulch could be in east central Florida with me at Florida Tech where I teach chemical engineering.

1) At Florida Tech, we have a very high placement rate into industry or graduate school. Many universities do not.

2) Forgiving student loan debt is obviously not Galt-like. These students did trade value for value, however, as did I. The value they got was a set of tools to succeed in industry. The success is up to them.
3) I sent out periodic e-mail blasts to students, alumni, and paying members of my local professional societies advertising jobs, co-ops, and internships. Some of you get that e-mail blast.

4) As for the student loan debt, students actually pay FAR less than the real education costs if they go to a state university. Tuition + room and board costs the university $40-50 K per year. That really is a breakeven number.
Students paying less are doing so at property owners' expense.

5) The student loan situation was made far worse by the President. One of his first acts was to abolish student loans from anybody but Sallie Mae, the government provider. This was an act to get his tentacles into private universities.

I like it, Old Man.

There have been a large number of comments in this post that address personal responsibility as the ultimate answer to the perceived problem of what I call the university racket. If we can agree the university system in the US is set up to cost thousands more than it should and becomes an expensive gatekeeper to many careers, then is the best argument to just avoid it? Don 't take the loans, don 't pursue certain degrees, don 't give them your business. But they aren 't operating like any private industry. They have become a monopolistic rent seeker. And it has broader implications in the world. Let 's take the sciences. Much of the research is funded through grants to universities. Universities have a monopoly on producing science and technology. They have slave labor in the form of grad students who long after they' ve met reasonable requirements for coursework continue to work for the university until a panel of 3 or 4 people who all have a vested interest in keeping them around to apply for more grants vote to let them have their degree so they can pursue their career and not the university's. And the answer is just don 't get a phd then? Don 't go to college then ? Exploring alternatives to fix this huge systemic problem seems reasonable and personally responsible to me. We have a legal system in place to help balance against problems such as this.

+1

This thread has lead me to this thought, although it may be re-inventing the wheel for some - Political foment in the US has been very difficult to create due to the lack of permanent class divisions. The Bolsheviks and the Maoists have successfully recruited the peasant/worker proletariat class; the Moslem Brotherhood did the same with the permanently unemployed student class. The class struggle is the cornerstone of Marx’s works and has been picked up by every socialist dictator – from Hitler to Alinsky. Clearly, the creation of a “dissatisfied” class in America is desirable from the point of view of socialist revolution. The second fact is that education in America has been under socialist control at least since the Vietnam War and in some respects much earlier. And socialists don’t do anything without a plan. So, now we come to the third fact – millions of current college graduates are essentially uneducated, with no useful skills, indoctrinated in the socialist propaganda, expect the government to direct them and totally in debt to the government and under its control, while many are and will remain unemployable. Then comes Obamacare with medical dependency on the parents’ insurance until 26, thus “helping” the so-called students to remain in school or in any case unemployed. Was Occupy Wall Street a dress rehearsal? Again, this was not unplanned. Are the socialists building a Fifth Column and having American parents pay for their own destruction?

I have been closely looking at colleges for my kids the last few years. I receive ads from them almost daily for my daughter from Az, Texas, Illinois, DC, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Having spoken to and met with representatives from the UofA and ASU I'm fairly comfortable saying that I see nothing of this type of behavior in the last 2-3 years. I will openly admit my view could be skewed because of where I live but the outside propaganda we receive regularly makes me think what you are presenting is not the norm. Sorry.

As for government loans, I'm fine with them as long as the interest rates are equal to the going market rate for long term loans AND there is no legal way (except death) for the student to get out of repayment.

What I see is "let the buyer beware" and not fraud. But I will admit, again, that perhaps how things are done is different in my state.

This problem is not limited to people who majored in stupid subjects, and it can happen whether you go to a highly regarded university or some no-name trade school. Some schools simply don't teach what employers want you to know.

I don't welcome these suits in cases where the school really didn't promise employability. But some have done so, and should be responsible when they don't deliver.

And if I were shopping for a school now, I would demand such a guarantee and not go to schools that don't offer one.

You aren't looking then

What kind of fruit could a nasty predator/scavenger
dino like me like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWGns2UL9...