London tuition riot

[57Chevy]

Don't give up hope lethallemon.

Jobs are getting more and more scarce out there.
You might try some sideline jobs while looking for something more steady
like painting or repair work which could
bring in a few extra bucks.

Moving to cut costs was a good choice.
Also look at where you can cut spending.
Those seemingly small expenses add up real fast over a month.

 

[Fusaki]

I couldnt afford CEGEP and neither could my mother ( bless her for she did try) so i quit, joined the CF and paid my way through higher education on my own. Imagine that, i managed to do post-secondary without government freebies........

I get that, and I'm in the process of doing it in a similar way you did.  I did six years in the regs, a couple tours, invested the money, and now I'm in school and the reserves.

But my situation is VERY different than most of my peers.  The ones with rich parents aren't doing too bad, but the ones who are fending for themselves are pretty hurt'n at the moment.  I have friends who are recently out of school - many of whom hold graduate degrees - and are scraping by on minimum wage.  And this is in Toronto!  If there are no jobs here, than where should they be moving?  It's not like these people aren't hard workers either.  Having done the army thing and doing the university thing, the challenges might be different, but both require considerable effort.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I've lived in Kingston. I see where the students spend their money. ***** and complain about how expensive school is, they get OSAP and either head out to the malls and blow it on clothes or blow it on alcohol.  Friends went to food shelters or stocked the cupboards with instant noodles but they always had money for pitches of beer and shots.

You could tell when school was finished because the students would take all the nice furnature their parents bought them and leave it on the side of the road on garbage day instead of bothering to move it.

Even without the rich parents in the mix. One girl I know racked up $70'000 (and counting) in OSAP and student loans. Lived in low income housing, kept changing what she wanted to take.

No sympathy for starving students.

 

[chrisf]

If anything, I have issues with textbooks. Do Newton's Laws change every four months? No? Then why am I buying different textbooks that repeat the same thing? The prime difference in editions of my textbook happen to be that they rearrange the questions with different numbers- That's about it, and that's why I have issues with being forced to buy the TWELFTH EDITION for $250. Multiply that by six courses, and I just paid for $1250 books + HST that will become useless in four months.

Try e-bay and used retailers on amazon next term... most engineering books are pretty standard globally, and you'll either be able to find used editions or "international" editions (Same book, different ISBN, printed for the international market... so much cheaper... usually printed on lower quality paper, and sometimes the diagrams aren't quite as clear, but exactly the same information)

I bought my $1500 worth of books for online approx $350 this semester after shipping... (For those complaining about the price of education... see, that half-hour spent online saved me $1150... little bit of effort)

 

[ballz]

When it comes to textbooks I am convinced there is 1. some inside money getting passed around and 2. what they are doing is morally criminal.

Sig Op, not sure how your textbook works, but for almost every course I've done, the reason they make you buy the "x" edition is because that edition just got published 1 month ago, and so there is almost NO used copies laying around. There is somebody within the faculty that decides what textbook you will be using for a course, not the professor.

My business law class required us to buy an "x" edition of the book. The professor noted with us how furious he was that he was being forced to teach out of "x" edition, since the only difference between it and "y" edition (which was used the year prior) was the SIZE OF THE FONT/HEADINGS, and the order of the questions, which changed every single page number.

Is there any surprise that the textbook is usually chosen because a certain person is friends with the person who wrote it, or the prof is friends with that person, or the prof wrote the book himself?

If the government could find some way of cracking down on that garbage with legislature, they'd make education costs cheaper without subsidizing it further.

EDIT: By the way, this basically happens every September, with almost every course I've done so far in the business faculty... the stuff above is just one example.

 

[chrisf]

Any course you do, first thing, ask the prof/instructor "Do we need the text book for this course?"

Half the time they'll say no.

Second question "Will an older edition work?"

If all they did was change the font heading, buy the older edition, you'll be fine.

I know for a fact that your (ballz) school library holds copies of the all the text books for all the courses, if it's questions that have changed, copy the questions from the newer edition, work out of the older edition.

There's work arounds for all these things...

With regards to "international" editions, they're usually the latest edition, just printed for the international market, at a fraction of the price.

(Have you had the experience of having the course text book written by the course prof/instructor yet? That's a fun one... usually their book is reference material for the course because A. The material it's written on is so obscure it's only relevant to the single course anyway, and B. It's so poorly written that no one would buy it unless they specificly needed as a reference because of part a.)

 

[ballz]

Well I'm ROTP so it doesn't affect me... just a personal beef I guess, as it does affect most people I know.

Any course you do, first thing, ask the prof/instructor "Do we need the text book for this course?"

Half the time they'll say no.

That's another thing that irks me, that dude in the faculty that makes them teach out of "x" textbook (because they know a guy that writes a textbook on that subject of course).

The international editions are, from what I know of them, definitely the best solution (besides government intervention, which isn't going to happen until I become PM.....).

 

[Old Sweat]

When it comes to textbooks I am convinced there is 1. some inside money getting passed around and 2. what they are doing is morally criminal.

Sig Op, not sure how your textbook works, but for almost every course I've done, the reason they make you buy the "x" edition is because that edition just got published 1 month ago, and so there is almost NO used copies laying around. There is somebody within the faculty that decides what textbook you will be using for a course, not the professor.

My business law class required us to buy an "x" edition of the book. The professor noted with us how furious he was that he was being forced to teach out of "x" edition, since the only difference between it and "y" edition (which was used the year prior) was the SIZE OF THE FONT/HEADINGS, and the order of the questions, which changed every single page number.

Is there any surprise that the textbook is usually chosen because a certain person is friends with the person who wrote it, or the prof is friends with that person, or the prof wrote the book himself?

If the government could find some way of cracking down on that garbage with legislature, they'd make education costs cheaper without subsidizing it further.

Many, many years ago a university professor let slip to a class I was in that he and his colleagues regularly made the latest edition of the textbooks authored by each of them mandatory. In other words, if professor A was teaching a class that used professor B's book, he would always make the latest edition as the only approved reference and B would reciprocate. This meant a hefty sum in royalties.

For example, and this is from the general publishing world and may not be the same as academia, if a book retails for $40.00, it wholesales for $24.00 or 60% of retail. The author gets 15% of the wholesale price of $3.60 a copy. So, if the book sells 1000 copies, the author gets $3600.00. Now, and this is a big if, if the textbook retails for $250.00 and thus wholesales for $150.00 and 100 students take the course in the fall term, the author would get $150.00 x 100 x 15% = $2,250.00.

You should also appreciate that the university book store clears $100.00 a copy, or $10,000.00 on 100 copies of our hypothetical textbook. Figure how much a university makes on textbook sales each term and you can appreciate that this is a goose laying golden eggs. I fear without this source of income, universities would make it up another way, like hiking tuition.

 

[chrisf]

Many, many years ago a university professor let slip to a class I was in that he and his colleagues regularly made the latest edition of the textbooks authored by each of them mandatory. In other words, if professor A was teaching a class that used professor B's book, he would always make the latest edition as the only approved reference and B would reciprocate. This meant a hefty sum in royalties.

Funny side note on the subject of books, the first time I met Dr. Elliot Leyton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Leyton), I had no idea he was an anthropology professor, an author, or more importantly, a noted expert on the subject of serial killers... all I knew was he was carrying a loaded shotgun, and wearing a t-shirt with a picture of himself printed on the front, along with "Hunting Humans" in large letters...

 

[PuckChaser]

Kingston? IMHO Queens University doesn't exactly represent the rest of Canadian Post Secondary students... I won't go into the specific reasons why, but at least at my faculty in my university we just shake our heads whenever something like Homecoming makes the news. Does it sound like fun? Sure. Do we have tuition and books to pay for? Yes, and any reasonable student should see where their priorities lay.

Slightly off-topic, but 50% of the people that got arrested at the last big Homecoming party were not Queen's students. I'm in no way standing up for the party, but its unfar to tar them all as drunk partiers.

I paid my way through a 2 year college program with the CF. No OSAP, lived at home because it was the most economical thing to do (still paid rent and portions of the bills). I never knew how the students I worked with did it, drinks after work on Thursdays then a party or 2 on the weekend while living on their own with OSAP. Perhaps we need a better system than just handing students cash. Give them less money, but the OSAP portion to pay for their books and tuition goes directly to the school, not to them and maybe to the school later.

 

[VIChris]

Yet another example of the Black Bloc tactics being used.  I say, anyone showing up at a peaceful demonstration wearing a disguise to hide their identity is not there to be peaceful and should be arrested on the spot.

Absolutely!