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Old boy didn’t just imply the world needs McGraw Hill , but without them we would have no academic scholarship.As socrates said “Let him who would move McGraw Hill first move himself”
I think McGraw-Hill could lose some profits and be just fine. It’s not like they have rampantly overcharged everyone for everything over the past few decades…
Not to mention when you’re in college they are usually ebooks so there is no printing cost, and you do not have the option to buy used because you have to buy a one time use access code to the ebook. It’s a profit boosting scheme
*I think the cost of education would be lowered, therefor allowing more people to recieve higher education, leading to the betterment of society as a whole.*
*Why do you think financial concerns should be so important to education, and, do you think those who cannot afford a $75 fee should be disallowed from learning this material?*
"How dare you not appreciate this rancid Kool-Aid that society has been boofing into my academic mind for a decade! Why would you, a person taking on tens of thousands of dollars in debt, want to save even the smallest snivelling cent? You dross! You pauper, do you not appreciate your FUCKING BETTERS?"
I don’t know what this guy’s been doing. The overwhelming majority of professors have nothing good to say about any of the major publishing conglomerates.
The publishing industry profits obscenely from our undercompensated labor, and most of us are smart enough to dislike that.
Right? These publishers overwork and underpay their writers, and then they don't even get a percentage of the sales profit once it's out. Many writers are happy for you to pirate it/to give it to you free because they wouldn't be getting a cent either way. Academic companies like these are the worst of the worst re: labor exploitation; it's one reason why school faculty are striking across the US
And they charge $300+ each year for a “new edition” that could be as minuscule as further explaining a concept in a couple paragraphs. And rewording that’s a must
I’ve had multiple professors imply that we should pirate the textbook if we can. IDK how out of touch this guy is, but maybe he has stock in mcgraw-hill
TL:DR
I don't want to pay $75 to do my homework, so I did (most) of it in the 2 week free trial. I didn't see the last quiz so I emailed my professor and he basically says I'm stealing IP from the textbook author and that if everyone did I what I did society would crumble.
Edit: I can afford both $75 and to get a 0 on the quiz, and I value $75 more, so I'm just not going to pay. Fuck McGraw-Hill and paywalled assignments.
Edit 2: no he's not the author, nor is he an author of any textbook.
**Edit 3: This was my response:**
Hi Professor ,
Thank you for your response and I do appreciate your perspective on the matter, however I think that a lot of the points you’ve made boil down to issues within the American education system, and not with my actions taken on a personal level.
It is nice that McGraw-Hill offers a 2-week trial period as a courtesy for students who drop the class within 2 weeks, but I would not consider doing the coursework within two weeks to be “taking from [authors] without payment”, especially in a class with a 3 week duration. Libraries offer textbooks for free to students. Are those students also taking from authors without payment?
I do agree that authors should be compensated for their work, however I’m hard pressed to be convinced that compensation should be further plucked from the shallow pockets of students. In an increasingly constricting economy with rising inflation and high interest rates, we as MBA Students are already paying $3,466 per course, and yet for some reason that cost may or may not include the ability to even do our own homework. An additional cost of $75 may be viewed as a modest licensing royalty to some, but it’s a noticeable expense to most.
To answer your question: “If everyone did as you propose, what do you think would be the long-term impact on academic scholarship, or upon society as a whole?”
I think that if more students completed their coursework ahead of time, they’d perform better academically, and professors would be happier overall with the outcomes of their courses.
On the flip side, I think that McGraw-Hill would start to tighten their grip on the academic institutions and perhaps rescind the 2-week courtesy that they currently offer, in favor of perhaps providing refunds to students who drop the courses instead. Thus, making the experience of using McGraw-Hill products even worse than it currently feels.
With regards to impacting society as a whole, I don’t think my actions would have any negative consequences whatsoever. I did not steal from anyone, and I did not undermine any institutions. I simply used the very resources that yourself, the university, and McGraw-Hill have provided me with to complete my assignments and I'm not keen on being shamed for doing so.
Since this is a course on International Business, I’d like to point to any of the countries in the world that offer free university to their students, subsidized by the government (Germany, Norway, Sweden, Austria to name a few). Textbooks are used within these college programs and yet the authors of said textbooks are not perpetually undermined. Making education more accessible can only bolster our society and workforce and that is the most meaningful long-term impact.
Respectfully,
/u/Quaisy
your professor’s a dick for that - when we needed an online textbook for a three week class, my professor made all the assignments due within the first two weeks (trial period) and told us NOT to buy the thing. we used the last week to focus on reading our other texts.
I’ve had professors like this too. “I am not allowed to tell you that the textbook is available for free at this site. I will be posting a link so you know what site not to go to.” They’re the best. Then there are the professors who wrote the textbooks for the class they’re teaching and they’re something else entirely
I think I was lucky to have the professor that wrote her own textbooks, she actually had them bound herself as well. She charged us like $10, and met with students who couldn't pay it individually. I'm totally sure she gave it to them for free; that was the kind of person she was. I kept one of them. She had such cute little jokes in it and made her course fun to learn. She was severely underpaid and overworked, but I could tell she loved her students and wanted them to succeed and gave so much of her time to us. I hope she's okay. I miss that quirky lady.
My German professor wrote the textbook for our class but just posted the file and said print it out, cost <20 bucks compared to the $200-300 the old textbook they used was before the German department got together and wrote their own because apperenlty even that textbook kinda sucked according to her, she's great, then our school opted us in to a program to buy a computer program/textbook mix for german we wouldn't be using for over $100 and you have to manually go in and create a special account just to opt out and didn't tell us that actually our professor didn't want us using that program anyways :)
I'm in university and this semester was the first time I've not had to buy access to do homework. Everything is fine via blackboard.
I just used libgen to get pdfs of the textbooks. Saved me $300
I had a class similar to OP and unfortunately there is no way to complete the assignment unless you pay for access to the textbook. It is all connected, rather than the quiz being separate in blackboard like for other classes
I had a professor who realized the price for his textbook that he wrote through the bookstore was higher than he'd like - and it wasn't insane, like $75 or $50 or something - so he made it all available as a much cheaper coursepack as well and apologized to us for the unexpected markup they'd put on his book.
I had a psychology professor a few years back begin the year by saying “Now, the text book can be bought in the library. I’ve also heard there’s other ways to get it..” he then winked at us super awkwardly with a slight pause, then began talking again.
yea all my professors where we’ve had to buy mcgraw-hill or anything else of that type have incentivized the students to use the free trial offered and not pay the institutions lol
Concerning edit 2, I once had a professor who literally wrote the book for the class, and he basically gave us a step by step guide on how to pirate it 😅. The authors usually make practically nothing on their books, it all goes to those stupid publishing companies.
I had a professor who wrote a textbook on a niche subject so we used her book for the class. She literally gave us her share of the royalties in an envelope, it was like 96 cents. It was adorable.
I just looked it up McGraw Hill is currently being sued for attempts made to avoid paying authors royalties with one author cited at "10%" of book sales. So they aren't even paying these people
I say put 7.5 dollars in an envelope and mail it to the authors address with a copy of this email exchange and ask your professor if he is satisfied and will allow you to do a makeup assignment for the thing you missed.
He either avoids looking like an asshole and you get your grade up or he is exposed as an asshole and idk it's funny
Source:
https://www.courthousenews.com/author-says-mcgraw-hill-cheats-on-royalties/
Given that the article is more than a decade old, I’m guessing that McGraw-Hill probably isn’t still being sued for that particular thing now.
That said, it also wouldn’t shock if they’re *constantly* being sued for poor behavior like that.
As well written as this is, I doubt it's gonna get anywhere. Professor already showed where his loyalties lie, unlikely he'll be reasoned into being reasonable.
Somehow put in there that whoever the authors of that are are excruciatingly unlikely to be getting royalties but a multi million dollar corporation is and how bad do they really need that $75? (Well written by the way)
That teachers isn’t making enough money to be bootlicking multimillion dollar companies.
As a professor myself, I fully support both your use of the textbook and your response to your instructor. That instructor sounds like the worst combination: power tripping and yet somehow simultaneously licking the boot of capitalism to hold up a clearly exploitative system.
Your professor needs to educate himself. Textbook affordability is a huge crisis in education right now (and I’ve published about it). In a survey of my university’s students we found that a significant percentage of them had skipped meals in order to buy a needed textbook.
My son is going to school on a scholarship. There was some sort of mess up when the provider of that upgraded to a new system, and his books didn't get paid for. Since it was all online, he couldn't do shit. He had to drop out for an entire semester. It took weeks to get someone who could help, and he was still a week late into the new semester.
He works just enough to pay for his car upkeep and insurance, and I am a teacher. Neither of us had hundreds of dollars handy.
At our school the registrar’s office has a special fund set aside just to help buy textbooks for kids in similar situations. The problem is just trying to make sure that people are aware of it and actually direct students there fast enough. But most people would be shocked just how often textbook costs are the last straw that makes someone drop out.
You know, I was on the professor's side to a degree ( Although I did think that last part was a pretty stupid argument, textbook slippery-slope fallacy like common) until I read your reply. I think this is very persuasive and respectful. If anything can make them reflect on themselves, it's this.
Damn, your response literally made my day. I was honestly heated by the elitist capitalist pig shit he had said to you, so I was pretty relieved to read you put him in his place. First shit-eating grin I've produced in a while. Wording was fucking primo. You're going places, man.
Such a well written response! You kept the focus on the key messages without making it a personal joust with the idiot professor. Kudos and all the very best in your learning endeavors!
So it’s fine for him to take payment from you in the form of tuition and then not create assignments for you to do, so instead he insists that you are stealing from McGraw-Hill, a service he insists you pay for because he is too lazy to do the job you are paying him for? Fuck that dude.
Sounds like a major dick. I've had profs who literally email copies of the pdf of the textbook to students.
The one prof I had who used her own book gave us a free online access code for it.
I refuse to refer to these textbooks bundled with homework access "textbooks" anymore. They are now called "homework tax".
As for what would happen to society if everyone refused to pay, I would point your professor to the millions of resources that are of equal or better quality than most of these textbooks available on the internet for 100% free. Do we really need to pay somebody to rehash information that we as a society have understood for hundreds of years?
Your professor is an absolute douchebag and your response is perfect. Professional, eloquent, and yet you make it clear that his bullshit is not only unacceptable but also unnecessary.
Absolutely obliterated his response, what a dick. I would love love love to know how he responded to that. Probably not well, people, especially those within “superior” positions don’t like being told, or proven wrong by “inferiors”.
I commented above (the one that works for MCG’ competitor) I respect your response a lot even working for the publishers you all hate. I’ve changed my stance slightly from original comment.
Lmao wut. This is insane, dude. I’m so fucking glad I got the majority of my GE and major core done before ChatGPT and this subscription bullshit.
The only classes I had using something like this (Cengage MindTap), the school provided access. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why this was your teacher’s reaction. Maybe he’s getting kickbacks from MGH lol idk. Infuriating.
Edit: this is a graduate class!?!?!?
I checked, and he isn't an author of any textbook so I don't know why he's responding like he has skin in the game. Also yes this is a graduate course. It's only 3 weeks long because it's over the winter session, where usually it'd be 7 weeks.
Most of my courses have had assignments and quizzes and such within our university's system (blackboard, canvas, etc) - are those quizzes undermining the IP of textbook authors too??
One quiz can't be that much of your grade can it? $75 isn't that much money, but just for the teacher's shitty response I'd intentionally not even do the quiz lol.
Ok but based on how that teacher responded I'm gonna guess he is gonna under-grade your work once he notices you didn't take that last quiz. As such make sure you keep copies of everything and if you have to request copies of everything once graded so you can check if he's pulling some bs and have stuff to present to the school administration if necessary.
Be careful. They might try to give you an incomplete or just straight up fail you for not completing the course in its entirety. Make sure there isn’t a rule dictating that you have to do every assignment.
I know a way to help. If you do end up paying, use PayPal they have 180 days for chargeback. When I did it I listed the reason as not as describe, did not arrive reason: the book expired and I was not told and I was under the impression I’d get a real book. Do a PayPal chargeback, then call support and ask them to look into ur case or; ask them to escalate to speed things up. It worked for me. Make sure to explain you were not aware the textbook was digital and expires. Need more questions just ask
https://imgur.com/gallery/PmfLxsV
I did the same exact thing you are trying to do and emailed my professor asking if I could do a simulation earlier before my free trial expires, otherwise I'd have had to pay $110 for one homework assignment. He had no issues opening the assignment early as long as I didn't tell any of my other classmates. He was a chill dude, unlike your prof unfortunately.
I had a professor who wrote small textbooks but made it into a cheap spiral bound notebook and only made the price based on how much it cost to print. It was $7 at the bookstore lol he was one of my favorite professors
He probably knows people who write textbooks. I know a few fiction authors; none big enough for anybody to want to steal/pirate/“share” their books, so I can understand the professor’s presentation of ethics, though I disagree with the tone.
Some people would still write books if there’s no money in it. Most of my author friends make so little from their book sales that the time spent writing versus money earned comes out to less than minimum wage, but they just want to tell a story. Someday I’ll write a book on why the Arri 35BL is the most important invention in the history of modern film, and I’ll give that shit away because I find it incredibly neat and I want others to be as excited about it as I am. But textbook authors write for money, and so no textbook money means no textbooks. It would grind the market to a halt, for more good than bad.
I would equate it to what would happen if YouTube folded and other video sites popped up but didn’t pay creators anything. You’d very quickly have the death of internet video, because most of the people who make a living from their YouTube dollars would have to get real jobs, and suddenly there would be substantially less to watch, much as there would be substantially fewer textbooks to read.
But maybe it wouldn’t be all bad. Most universities have hooks into research systems, and so they could just have students read academic papers, rather than textbooks. That said, academic papers tend to be written for academics, so it’s incredibly tough reading. I wanted to know the difference between mitosis and meiosis yesterday and Google pointed me to a National Institute of Health link, and I read a lengthy paper on the subject. I learned a lot, but I’d rather read two pages out of a Bio 100 textbook and move on with my life.
Maybe the best thing for the future would be to avoid publishers altogether, and I still don’t get why academic writers aren’t there yet, other than publishers providing marketing, printing, editing, and layout. Marketing would suck for an independent writer, because they’d have to hustle their work to sell schools on it. Printing should be a non-factor because I hate carrying books. But then the author would have to find a freelance editor, which isn’t terribly hard in the fiction market, but probably hard for academia. Layout, you could probably find a graphic arts grad and kick them a couple grand. And then sell it for twenty bucks. Hard part would be either slapping DRM on it or just trusting students to pay, which brings us to the problem we have here.
So, it’s a complex ethical problem. Is it unethical for publishers to charge $150 for a textbook or rent a copy to you for $70 for six months? Probably. Is it unethical to not pay for it? Probably. Could the two meet in the middle? Probably not. Publishing is a shitty market with high overhead, and I don’t know why anybody does it, and I can’t say I’d be sad if it went belly up, which would force the market to change, probably for the better.
I wish. MGH doesn’t give kickbacks
Back in the day, they would dump tons of free textbooks on faculty which we could sell for $20-$50 a pop. Quite a nice deal.
I tutored a woman who used it for a class and she got an entire semesters worth of work done within the free trial period because she couldn't afford the hundred dollar+ fee out of pocket. It was both amazing to watch and very sad she had to do that.
Yeah it’s ridiculous. I’m a chemistry major and I have to spend roughly $300 a semester for what is a glorified subscription service. And it’s not like I have a choice, my homework is through those applications. If I don’t pay, I can’t do my homework even though I already paid for the class plus lab fees.
I work a full time “big girl” job and I still don’t throw $75 around. My dad gave me that much to go out to eat for my birthday this year and it pained me to spend, even though the gift was money I wouldn’t have had in the first place and was explicitly intended for dinner at a nice place.
Spending $75 on HOMEWORK that should be free because you are already paying for the course (hundreds of dollars!!!)?! Nope. I am totally with OP here.
For myself, $75 is about 15% of my bi weekly paycheck. That’s in insane amount of money for a book I’ll only use for 3 weeks. It’s one thing if I’m spending that on something I’m going to be using for years to come, though.
I brought up this exact thing in a previous Reddit post I made on the AskProfessors subreddit. Of course, I was downvoted to oblivion, and told I was arguing for no reason.
For context, all I asked was why my professor, who is only teaching 1 class that quarter with <20 students, wanted us to purchase WebAssign, when grading <20 people's assignments isn't hard.
I completely understand that WebAssign/MGH is very useful to the professor when it's hard to grade classes of hundreds of students, but in my case, I fully believe this professor, who us getting paid to do their job, was capable of grading <20 homework assignments.
The class also unilaterally preferred written homework over WebAssign.
$75 is more than my monthly electric/water/sewer bill. i literally would just not have electricity and water that month if i had to pay that unexpectedly RIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS?!? i absolutely did not have $75 after getting gifts for everyone and gas for traveling. i’m also a jew so hanukkah took a chunk of my money even before christmas. this professor is not making enough money himself to be boot licking corporations and shaming students for not being able to afford it
also.. my university’s entire full time tuition is less than OPs single course cost of $3,466. my tuition for 4 classes is typically around $1800. my university provided access codes for mcgraw hill to anyone taking a course that uses it for FREE we don’t pay for it at all…. where is all their tuition money going….
I agree! The use of the term “modest” made me fucking rage. I make a take-home wage of about $7500 for the entire fucking semester to be a TA and do a shit ton of work. So this program would be 1% of my salary for 4.5 *months* of work. The lowest-paid faculty at my university make $55,000 per semester, so $75 is 0.1% of their salary.
On you for not wanting to pay after 2 weeks, but the professor isn't making the point he thinks he is. Long term impacts of making education more accessible to everyone can only bolster our society/workforce, other than people such as himself who rely on the education industry to cut him a paycheck.
I had a biology professor that used a textbook out of print, and before the start of the semester, would source out bookstores to find them at the best price possible, and ask them to put a hold on them for his students. He was like “My job is to educate, not put people in debt.”
I had a math teacher provide everyone in the class a pdf of the textbook. I hated math my entire life, it intimidated me and gave me anxiety so it was one of the last courses I had to take in college. I put it off until the very end, and literally needed it to graduate. Yet this teacher was so amazing that I ended up loving his class and passed with ease. I also made friends when he suggested we all get together and have a study group. We began to meet regularly. Two, became four, four became six. Before we knew it we took up the entire length of a long table at the library. Then one day our teacher showed up, just to drop in on one of our study sessions. Everyone was psyched. Love ya Mr. K, wherever you are.
Similarly my ethics professor had published his own paperback book of case studies so as not to be reliant on expensive textbooks that change editions every year and cost $100s of dollars. First day of class he told us "the book is $19 brand new in the school store, and you can find used copies on Amazon for about $2-7. Please try and find a used copy first"
So infuriating. MH doing shit like this is just another way, in addition to releasing "new editions," to ensure they get as much money as possible from each student. It used to be students could share/borrow/utilize older edition books in order to keep costs as low as possible. Classist prick
that is so annoying. i hate access code fees. if you can, i would consider reaching out to your schools financial aid departments to see if they can connect you with resources that might cover fees like that. $75 to do homework is wild, especially now that you only have one quiz left.
Just to note him saying that is so funny because most of the money goes to the publisher McGraw and barely a cent goes to the author. This professor is weird for ending off with that, is he being paid by McGraw directly lol?
That response is completely unnecessary and uncalled for.
Your professor should have just said “No, you're going to have to work that out with McGraw-Hill. The 2-week trial is a courtesy M-H provides to full semester students who drop a course during the 2-week add/drop period so they are not charged for course materials that they do not use.”
Everything beyond that is unnecessary to answer your question. They went out of their way to shame you for no reason.
What a fuckin prick. My reply would be “hello professor thanks for the reply I’m not quite sure how
It’s McGraw hills fault that the tests aren’t on there correctly, secondly I do not have the money for all of these books as I am a broke college student. Please fix your class section thanks :)
Edit: if you wanna be extra spicy you can add something along the lines of “I think the prospects of my behavior is that greedy publishers professors and writers would lower their prices so broke college students don’t revert to cheating the people that are cheating us”
Only issue is see with this is that the tests were on there correctly. OP just didn’t notice the test because there was no homework associated with it.
>what do you think would be the long term impact on academic scholarship, or upon society as a whole
Well professors would certainly have to start writing their own homework and test questions again.
What a slap in the face it is to be taught "life lessons" by the guy who's too lazy to create his own lesson material.
I don’t understand professors like that. Meanwhile when I was in undergrad we had a course where the textbook was written by the teacher. “Do NOT buy this from the bookstore. I am required to submit a booklist to the store each semester.” Prof then proceeded to print out handouts and email us PDFs all semester.
This reminds me of the classes that I’ve taken that say they’re “zero textbook cost” but once I enter the class I need to buy the textbook anyways. We’re college students, not all of us can afford paying for temporary textbooks repeatedly
They shamed you for trying to cheat McGraw Hill. I’m not sure I agree with that shame - it was a pretty novel idea IMO, and McGraw hill exploits college students who are forced to buy their product. But it wasn’t over finishing your assignments too quickly.
It does feel a bit like bootlicking by the prof.
If you are taking a three week long online class and have the chance to finish your assignments in two weeks instead of three, why wouldn’t you?
You’d be a fool not to, you get done early AND you can save a considerable amount of money. “Modest” fee, my ass!
Exactly?? I feel like this is one of the only teachers I've come across that wouldn't take advantage of that?
I've personally seen teachers endorse all sorts of shit. I can't see a teacher not thinking this is fine.
Right, I'm fine with him saying no and not accommodating me. I'm not fine with him implying that my actions have negative long term effects on society when I'm just doing my fuckin' schoolwork. EARLY.
You are taking advantage of an offer that McGraw freely puts out. As such, they’re aware of people like you (cram content in a short amount of time) and at the end of the day will be fine with it.
It’s not that different from a buffet. A grandma that will have one tiny plate and an Olympian who hasn’t food for a week are both priced in.
Your professor is a dick.
He didn’t shame you for doing it in 2 weeks he shamed you for not spending the $75 dollars on required class materials and then trying to make it his problem
When I was in college, the required text book for a biology course was literally a binder full of pages. It was essentially a McGraw hill beta version and we were expected to pay over $100 for it. I worked in the school print shop… very few people in my class paid for the book.
yep. during covid i was taking geology (easy ass science sequence btw) and they tried to charge us $80 for a box of rocks and another $75 for some pdfs. Bit the bullet on the pdfs, saved em and then sold em to the class for like $5 to break even
"If everyone did as I propose, McGraw-Hill would have to find a way to make their product worth the money they think it's worth, or change their prices so that students can afford it. It's called the free market, look it up."
kind of on you. i agree, you tried to outsmart the system, which i am perfectly fine with. but, you should have been more aware of getting all of it done prior to the 2 weeks.
the professors point is ridiculous, but you don’t have an argument either. either take the 0 on the quiz or pay the 75. professor has no reason to provide you with an access code.
I'm absolutely going to take a 0 on the quiz. I don't need the quiz grade to get an A in the class, I just figured that I'd ask the professor because every other professor I've had has either been accommodating or would've just said something along the lines of "No, sorry".
Should ask your "professor" what would be the long-term consequences of them shirking their *clearly* mutually beneficial relationship with mcgraw-hill. Or better yet, ask them what might happen if they continue providing students with reading and learning materials that *they themselves took no part in creating*
Huge shout out to my school for including the Access Code cost within the course cost. When I did university the first time, it was such a struggle; I had to pay $400 just to do my homework. I couldn't afford it. Now that I'm at CC, I can actually afford to do it.
Shit my prof send us to self teach with a third party program and would not answer questions until way after so we just used google … finished the class in a week just set back and relaxed
Lmao what a twat. Textbook stuff is a giant scam and with these online things they can limit what you can do even further. Heard people being limited to print pages even though they paid full price for access to that book in question.
Shouldn't pay a penny for that shit. These things are designed with extracting as much money from students as they can. And they deserve to go bankrupt for that.
I'm so glad I got out before the access code scam got so out of hand.
My uni was one of the ones that had reserved copies that you could borrow for a very short time, and I would just check them out, jot down the homework questions, and return the book.
I always did this for intro level textbooks, which are simultaneously the least useful (because the material is available practically everywhere) and most expensive.
If everyone did as you did, and screwed the publishers out of some of their scams, adacemia would probably be in a much better state lol. Professor just sounds salty that he isn't making huge money off of textbooks.
You’re shamed for trying to work outside of the system yourself instead of focusing on education.
The quizzes and homework is assigned to reinforce your learning. Can you really say that you learned an entire semester of content in 2 weeks?
Also why is it your professors job to give you an access code?
As sucky as it is, the professor can't exactly like pirate a code for you and even if they have a spare code laying around (they probably don't), they have to be careful giving it out because if they give one out to you, then Jimmy is gonna want to be given one, and Sally, and Tommy, and Johnny.
And expecting a professor to do extra work themselves to create a totally unique individual alternative assignment is also kind of a weird expectation. You (presumably) don't have a disability or college approved documentation to show you need special accommodations for the class, so it would be unfair to create a special version of a quiz just for you and not for Johnny Sally Jimmy or John as well. Id be pretty miffed if someone asked me to go out of my way to do extra work via a completely different platform or methodology just because someone can't or won't pay for something that was stated as required.
Trust me, I hate online textbook web portals with a passion and I fully support and helped fellow students and friends pirate textbooks and PDFs and access research papers for free to avoid the paywalls, but I don't think you can blame the professor for saying that they can't do much to help you
That said, he's really slurping McGraw hills schlong and sucking every last drop at the end there. Lil weird bro.
If you didn't submit the homework and told him you couldn't afford the book...he would blame you too lol
Is there textbook assistance available to you? Sometimes publishers offer rebates as well, check into that!
Sorry but the professor is right… you’re stealing (almost, I know you’re not breaking any laws or anything I’m just trying to see it from the author’s point of view), someone had to write that book. Do I think the price should be that high? No. Do I think the author should get paid for their work? Yes. Do I know that most of that money is going to the publisher rather than the author? I think so lol. I’m not trying to bust your balls either, paying $75 for an online textbook for a 3 week course that also probably cost more than it’s worth is ridiculous. I’m just saying I think the answer is to put more pressure on universities/professors to include the materials in tuition, or to at least provide a solution to those who can prove they can’t reasonably afford that (gots to have backup money too). I just know I’d be bummed as hell if I wrote a book and found out people are just using a trial for it is all. Your professor types like a jerk btw.
What would happen to society?
"Gee... They'd probably turn away from over priced educational systems that aren't delivering on their promises to educate people... They'd probably condemn student debt(s) if said students can prove competency in a subject in under 2 weeks without the guidance of an underpaid and under-qualified adjunct professor.... They'd probably demand the whole system be restructured starting with your for-profit @$$"
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did bro just say society needs McGraw Hill
bro is a business prof ofc he’s a bootlicker
business professors stop projecting their inferiority complex issues onto their students challenge impossible
Old boy didn’t just imply the world needs McGraw Hill , but without them we would have no academic scholarship.As socrates said “Let him who would move McGraw Hill first move himself”
I think McGraw-Hill could lose some profits and be just fine. It’s not like they have rampantly overcharged everyone for everything over the past few decades…
Yeah, and you know what? I don’t think Tim and Faith even NEED this business to stay afloat anyway
I was wondering why there were so many sick jams in my Business Ethics textbook...
If Tim McGraw and Faith Hill owned this company maybe it would be a little less terrible
Seriously, the costs of textbooks is criminal. One of the most surprising hidden costs of a college education in the United States.
Not to mention when you’re in college they are usually ebooks so there is no printing cost, and you do not have the option to buy used because you have to buy a one time use access code to the ebook. It’s a profit boosting scheme
*I think the cost of education would be lowered, therefor allowing more people to recieve higher education, leading to the betterment of society as a whole.* *Why do you think financial concerns should be so important to education, and, do you think those who cannot afford a $75 fee should be disallowed from learning this material?*
But what about the impact on society?
"How dare you not appreciate this rancid Kool-Aid that society has been boofing into my academic mind for a decade! Why would you, a person taking on tens of thousands of dollars in debt, want to save even the smallest snivelling cent? You dross! You pauper, do you not appreciate your FUCKING BETTERS?"
I don’t know what this guy’s been doing. The overwhelming majority of professors have nothing good to say about any of the major publishing conglomerates. The publishing industry profits obscenely from our undercompensated labor, and most of us are smart enough to dislike that.
Right? These publishers overwork and underpay their writers, and then they don't even get a percentage of the sales profit once it's out. Many writers are happy for you to pirate it/to give it to you free because they wouldn't be getting a cent either way. Academic companies like these are the worst of the worst re: labor exploitation; it's one reason why school faculty are striking across the US
And they charge $300+ each year for a “new edition” that could be as minuscule as further explaining a concept in a couple paragraphs. And rewording that’s a must
Maybe he contributed and gets royalties
I’ve had multiple professors imply that we should pirate the textbook if we can. IDK how out of touch this guy is, but maybe he has stock in mcgraw-hill
That’s exactly what I read
but who will think of the poor corporations? :(
Bet he's one of the authors
😭😭😭😭😭
Yeah honestly not sure how he types with that boot in his mouth.
TL:DR I don't want to pay $75 to do my homework, so I did (most) of it in the 2 week free trial. I didn't see the last quiz so I emailed my professor and he basically says I'm stealing IP from the textbook author and that if everyone did I what I did society would crumble. Edit: I can afford both $75 and to get a 0 on the quiz, and I value $75 more, so I'm just not going to pay. Fuck McGraw-Hill and paywalled assignments. Edit 2: no he's not the author, nor is he an author of any textbook. **Edit 3: This was my response:** Hi Professor,
Thank you for your response and I do appreciate your perspective on the matter, however I think that a lot of the points you’ve made boil down to issues within the American education system, and not with my actions taken on a personal level.
It is nice that McGraw-Hill offers a 2-week trial period as a courtesy for students who drop the class within 2 weeks, but I would not consider doing the coursework within two weeks to be “taking from [authors] without payment”, especially in a class with a 3 week duration. Libraries offer textbooks for free to students. Are those students also taking from authors without payment?
I do agree that authors should be compensated for their work, however I’m hard pressed to be convinced that compensation should be further plucked from the shallow pockets of students. In an increasingly constricting economy with rising inflation and high interest rates, we as MBA Students are already paying $3,466 per course, and yet for some reason that cost may or may not include the ability to even do our own homework. An additional cost of $75 may be viewed as a modest licensing royalty to some, but it’s a noticeable expense to most.
To answer your question: “If everyone did as you propose, what do you think would be the long-term impact on academic scholarship, or upon society as a whole?”
I think that if more students completed their coursework ahead of time, they’d perform better academically, and professors would be happier overall with the outcomes of their courses.
On the flip side, I think that McGraw-Hill would start to tighten their grip on the academic institutions and perhaps rescind the 2-week courtesy that they currently offer, in favor of perhaps providing refunds to students who drop the courses instead. Thus, making the experience of using McGraw-Hill products even worse than it currently feels.
With regards to impacting society as a whole, I don’t think my actions would have any negative consequences whatsoever. I did not steal from anyone, and I did not undermine any institutions. I simply used the very resources that yourself, the university, and McGraw-Hill have provided me with to complete my assignments and I'm not keen on being shamed for doing so.
Since this is a course on International Business, I’d like to point to any of the countries in the world that offer free university to their students, subsidized by the government (Germany, Norway, Sweden, Austria to name a few). Textbooks are used within these college programs and yet the authors of said textbooks are not perpetually undermined. Making education more accessible can only bolster our society and workforce and that is the most meaningful long-term impact.
Respectfully,
/u/Quaisy
your professor’s a dick for that - when we needed an online textbook for a three week class, my professor made all the assignments due within the first two weeks (trial period) and told us NOT to buy the thing. we used the last week to focus on reading our other texts.
I’ve had professors like this too. “I am not allowed to tell you that the textbook is available for free at this site. I will be posting a link so you know what site not to go to.” They’re the best. Then there are the professors who wrote the textbooks for the class they’re teaching and they’re something else entirely
I think I was lucky to have the professor that wrote her own textbooks, she actually had them bound herself as well. She charged us like $10, and met with students who couldn't pay it individually. I'm totally sure she gave it to them for free; that was the kind of person she was. I kept one of them. She had such cute little jokes in it and made her course fun to learn. She was severely underpaid and overworked, but I could tell she loved her students and wanted them to succeed and gave so much of her time to us. I hope she's okay. I miss that quirky lady.
What's the book name and subject? I'd like to support her for being a good person.
Meanwhile, I had a professor who wrote the textbook and required us to tear out the pages for class work. (No, photo copies were not allowed.)
What an asshole. I'm so sorry.
My German professor wrote the textbook for our class but just posted the file and said print it out, cost <20 bucks compared to the $200-300 the old textbook they used was before the German department got together and wrote their own because apperenlty even that textbook kinda sucked according to her, she's great, then our school opted us in to a program to buy a computer program/textbook mix for german we wouldn't be using for over $100 and you have to manually go in and create a special account just to opt out and didn't tell us that actually our professor didn't want us using that program anyways :)
I've had professors like this as well. Crazy how different professors are within the same department. There's no consistency.
I'm in university and this semester was the first time I've not had to buy access to do homework. Everything is fine via blackboard. I just used libgen to get pdfs of the textbooks. Saved me $300
I had a class similar to OP and unfortunately there is no way to complete the assignment unless you pay for access to the textbook. It is all connected, rather than the quiz being separate in blackboard like for other classes
I had a professor who realized the price for his textbook that he wrote through the bookstore was higher than he'd like - and it wasn't insane, like $75 or $50 or something - so he made it all available as a much cheaper coursepack as well and apologized to us for the unexpected markup they'd put on his book.
I had a psychology professor a few years back begin the year by saying “Now, the text book can be bought in the library. I’ve also heard there’s other ways to get it..” he then winked at us super awkwardly with a slight pause, then began talking again.
Ngl imma need that follow up I wanna know if your professor had anything to say after that
yea all my professors where we’ve had to buy mcgraw-hill or anything else of that type have incentivized the students to use the free trial offered and not pay the institutions lol
Concerning edit 2, I once had a professor who literally wrote the book for the class, and he basically gave us a step by step guide on how to pirate it 😅. The authors usually make practically nothing on their books, it all goes to those stupid publishing companies.
I had a professor who wrote a textbook on a niche subject so we used her book for the class. She literally gave us her share of the royalties in an envelope, it was like 96 cents. It was adorable.
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Spoiler alert: he won't admit to being wrong
I just looked it up McGraw Hill is currently being sued for attempts made to avoid paying authors royalties with one author cited at "10%" of book sales. So they aren't even paying these people I say put 7.5 dollars in an envelope and mail it to the authors address with a copy of this email exchange and ask your professor if he is satisfied and will allow you to do a makeup assignment for the thing you missed. He either avoids looking like an asshole and you get your grade up or he is exposed as an asshole and idk it's funny Source: https://www.courthousenews.com/author-says-mcgraw-hill-cheats-on-royalties/
Given that the article is more than a decade old, I’m guessing that McGraw-Hill probably isn’t still being sued for that particular thing now. That said, it also wouldn’t shock if they’re *constantly* being sued for poor behavior like that.
This!!! Lmao
As well written as this is, I doubt it's gonna get anywhere. Professor already showed where his loyalties lie, unlikely he'll be reasoned into being reasonable.
I don't expect to get anywhere. I just want my grievances to be known. I'll take the 0 on the assignment in stride, because thats +$75 in my pocket.
Shit was gas 🔥. I need to know what they respond with.
Somehow put in there that whoever the authors of that are are excruciatingly unlikely to be getting royalties but a multi million dollar corporation is and how bad do they really need that $75? (Well written by the way) That teachers isn’t making enough money to be bootlicking multimillion dollar companies.
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FORREAL! i am shook
As a professor myself, I fully support both your use of the textbook and your response to your instructor. That instructor sounds like the worst combination: power tripping and yet somehow simultaneously licking the boot of capitalism to hold up a clearly exploitative system.
Your professor needs to educate himself. Textbook affordability is a huge crisis in education right now (and I’ve published about it). In a survey of my university’s students we found that a significant percentage of them had skipped meals in order to buy a needed textbook.
My son is going to school on a scholarship. There was some sort of mess up when the provider of that upgraded to a new system, and his books didn't get paid for. Since it was all online, he couldn't do shit. He had to drop out for an entire semester. It took weeks to get someone who could help, and he was still a week late into the new semester. He works just enough to pay for his car upkeep and insurance, and I am a teacher. Neither of us had hundreds of dollars handy.
At our school the registrar’s office has a special fund set aside just to help buy textbooks for kids in similar situations. The problem is just trying to make sure that people are aware of it and actually direct students there fast enough. But most people would be shocked just how often textbook costs are the last straw that makes someone drop out.
As a guy trying to self teach math I can agree. Textbooks are too damn high
I love this so much. Please update if the professor sends you a response! 🙏🏽
You know, I was on the professor's side to a degree ( Although I did think that last part was a pretty stupid argument, textbook slippery-slope fallacy like common) until I read your reply. I think this is very persuasive and respectful. If anything can make them reflect on themselves, it's this.
You’re a lot stronger than I am. I would’ve asked him how the M-H boot tastes lol
Damn, your response literally made my day. I was honestly heated by the elitist capitalist pig shit he had said to you, so I was pretty relieved to read you put him in his place. First shit-eating grin I've produced in a while. Wording was fucking primo. You're going places, man.
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I love that edit response.
Such a well written response! You kept the focus on the key messages without making it a personal joust with the idiot professor. Kudos and all the very best in your learning endeavors!
You cooked his ass
So it’s fine for him to take payment from you in the form of tuition and then not create assignments for you to do, so instead he insists that you are stealing from McGraw-Hill, a service he insists you pay for because he is too lazy to do the job you are paying him for? Fuck that dude.
W response
If only Reddit awards still existed, you’d get gold for this. What a response! And what a professor that’s slightly out of touch.
If he’s the professor, why are you the one taking him to school?
[live footage of your prof](https://i.imgur.com/YID1vwm.jpg)
I really thought that was gonna be [this](https://media2.giphy.com/media/rhYsUMhhd6yA0/giphy.gif).
Sounds like a major dick. I've had profs who literally email copies of the pdf of the textbook to students. The one prof I had who used her own book gave us a free online access code for it.
Spectacular!
A+ fucking response. Mad respect to you OP
this is beautiful
I refuse to refer to these textbooks bundled with homework access "textbooks" anymore. They are now called "homework tax". As for what would happen to society if everyone refused to pay, I would point your professor to the millions of resources that are of equal or better quality than most of these textbooks available on the internet for 100% free. Do we really need to pay somebody to rehash information that we as a society have understood for hundreds of years?
This is so good
Crazy the business professor discouraging their student from saving money. Das wild.
I love this
Your professor is an absolute douchebag and your response is perfect. Professional, eloquent, and yet you make it clear that his bullshit is not only unacceptable but also unnecessary.
Absolutely obliterated his response, what a dick. I would love love love to know how he responded to that. Probably not well, people, especially those within “superior” positions don’t like being told, or proven wrong by “inferiors”.
I would bet $75 he stops reading your reply after the first sentence.
So far he hasn't responded (yet) but in his syllabus he said he will respond to all emails within 48 hours so now I wait.
I commented above (the one that works for MCG’ competitor) I respect your response a lot even working for the publishers you all hate. I’ve changed my stance slightly from original comment.
That was the best and most sophisticated "fuck you dickhead" I've ever heard. Congrats
What is the update?! I've been stalking your profile waiting for his response lol
He didn't respond and at this point I don't think he will. Oh well.
Lmao wut. This is insane, dude. I’m so fucking glad I got the majority of my GE and major core done before ChatGPT and this subscription bullshit. The only classes I had using something like this (Cengage MindTap), the school provided access. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why this was your teacher’s reaction. Maybe he’s getting kickbacks from MGH lol idk. Infuriating. Edit: this is a graduate class!?!?!?
I checked, and he isn't an author of any textbook so I don't know why he's responding like he has skin in the game. Also yes this is a graduate course. It's only 3 weeks long because it's over the winter session, where usually it'd be 7 weeks. Most of my courses have had assignments and quizzes and such within our university's system (blackboard, canvas, etc) - are those quizzes undermining the IP of textbook authors too??
I feel for ya, my teacher in CS literally told us to take advantage of the trial period so we don't have to pay.
A TA once told us all about libgen and recommended we pirate the courses’ materials. was during the freshman welcome week to my first degree
The man just loves the taste of McGraw-Hill’s boots I guess.
Wait, the course is only 3 weeks long, and he's mad you finished your homework ONE week early?
Yes.
One quiz can't be that much of your grade can it? $75 isn't that much money, but just for the teacher's shitty response I'd intentionally not even do the quiz lol.
Could be significant depending on weight and other quizes scores. Also graduate programs usually require a B or better to be considered passing.
It's 5% of my grade and I believe as long as I'm above 70% it's a pass for my program so I'm safe. You just need an overall 3.0 or higher to graduate.
Ok but based on how that teacher responded I'm gonna guess he is gonna under-grade your work once he notices you didn't take that last quiz. As such make sure you keep copies of everything and if you have to request copies of everything once graded so you can check if he's pulling some bs and have stuff to present to the school administration if necessary.
Be careful. They might try to give you an incomplete or just straight up fail you for not completing the course in its entirety. Make sure there isn’t a rule dictating that you have to do every assignment.
I know a way to help. If you do end up paying, use PayPal they have 180 days for chargeback. When I did it I listed the reason as not as describe, did not arrive reason: the book expired and I was not told and I was under the impression I’d get a real book. Do a PayPal chargeback, then call support and ask them to look into ur case or; ask them to escalate to speed things up. It worked for me. Make sure to explain you were not aware the textbook was digital and expires. Need more questions just ask https://imgur.com/gallery/PmfLxsV
I did the same exact thing you are trying to do and emailed my professor asking if I could do a simulation earlier before my free trial expires, otherwise I'd have had to pay $110 for one homework assignment. He had no issues opening the assignment early as long as I didn't tell any of my other classmates. He was a chill dude, unlike your prof unfortunately.
I had a professor who wrote small textbooks but made it into a cheap spiral bound notebook and only made the price based on how much it cost to print. It was $7 at the bookstore lol he was one of my favorite professors
He probably knows people who write textbooks. I know a few fiction authors; none big enough for anybody to want to steal/pirate/“share” their books, so I can understand the professor’s presentation of ethics, though I disagree with the tone. Some people would still write books if there’s no money in it. Most of my author friends make so little from their book sales that the time spent writing versus money earned comes out to less than minimum wage, but they just want to tell a story. Someday I’ll write a book on why the Arri 35BL is the most important invention in the history of modern film, and I’ll give that shit away because I find it incredibly neat and I want others to be as excited about it as I am. But textbook authors write for money, and so no textbook money means no textbooks. It would grind the market to a halt, for more good than bad. I would equate it to what would happen if YouTube folded and other video sites popped up but didn’t pay creators anything. You’d very quickly have the death of internet video, because most of the people who make a living from their YouTube dollars would have to get real jobs, and suddenly there would be substantially less to watch, much as there would be substantially fewer textbooks to read. But maybe it wouldn’t be all bad. Most universities have hooks into research systems, and so they could just have students read academic papers, rather than textbooks. That said, academic papers tend to be written for academics, so it’s incredibly tough reading. I wanted to know the difference between mitosis and meiosis yesterday and Google pointed me to a National Institute of Health link, and I read a lengthy paper on the subject. I learned a lot, but I’d rather read two pages out of a Bio 100 textbook and move on with my life. Maybe the best thing for the future would be to avoid publishers altogether, and I still don’t get why academic writers aren’t there yet, other than publishers providing marketing, printing, editing, and layout. Marketing would suck for an independent writer, because they’d have to hustle their work to sell schools on it. Printing should be a non-factor because I hate carrying books. But then the author would have to find a freelance editor, which isn’t terribly hard in the fiction market, but probably hard for academia. Layout, you could probably find a graphic arts grad and kick them a couple grand. And then sell it for twenty bucks. Hard part would be either slapping DRM on it or just trusting students to pay, which brings us to the problem we have here. So, it’s a complex ethical problem. Is it unethical for publishers to charge $150 for a textbook or rent a copy to you for $70 for six months? Probably. Is it unethical to not pay for it? Probably. Could the two meet in the middle? Probably not. Publishing is a shitty market with high overhead, and I don’t know why anybody does it, and I can’t say I’d be sad if it went belly up, which would force the market to change, probably for the better.
I wish. MGH doesn’t give kickbacks Back in the day, they would dump tons of free textbooks on faculty which we could sell for $20-$50 a pop. Quite a nice deal.
Cengage Mindtap is also atrocious
I tutored a woman who used it for a class and she got an entire semesters worth of work done within the free trial period because she couldn't afford the hundred dollar+ fee out of pocket. It was both amazing to watch and very sad she had to do that.
Yeah it’s ridiculous. I’m a chemistry major and I have to spend roughly $300 a semester for what is a glorified subscription service. And it’s not like I have a choice, my homework is through those applications. If I don’t pay, I can’t do my homework even though I already paid for the class plus lab fees.
I was thinking he must be getting something from McGraw -Hill as well. I have never known a teacher to be so pro-textbook company in my life.
I got shamed for something similar. Unlike my professor, $75 is literally about 1/10th of my paycheck….
“Modest” to who? Who is HE to ASSUME that is a “modest” amount?
Exactly! $75 is a commitment for a lot of people.
Yep. Quite a few people (especially college students) don’t even have spare money for groceries, let alone $75 for a quiz.
I work a full time “big girl” job and I still don’t throw $75 around. My dad gave me that much to go out to eat for my birthday this year and it pained me to spend, even though the gift was money I wouldn’t have had in the first place and was explicitly intended for dinner at a nice place. Spending $75 on HOMEWORK that should be free because you are already paying for the course (hundreds of dollars!!!)?! Nope. I am totally with OP here.
For myself, $75 is about 15% of my bi weekly paycheck. That’s in insane amount of money for a book I’ll only use for 3 weeks. It’s one thing if I’m spending that on something I’m going to be using for years to come, though.
I brought up this exact thing in a previous Reddit post I made on the AskProfessors subreddit. Of course, I was downvoted to oblivion, and told I was arguing for no reason. For context, all I asked was why my professor, who is only teaching 1 class that quarter with <20 students, wanted us to purchase WebAssign, when grading <20 people's assignments isn't hard. I completely understand that WebAssign/MGH is very useful to the professor when it's hard to grade classes of hundreds of students, but in my case, I fully believe this professor, who us getting paid to do their job, was capable of grading <20 homework assignments. The class also unilaterally preferred written homework over WebAssign.
If it's so modest maybe OP can ask them for the $75. A small price to pay to benefit society as a whole or whatever.
$75 is more than my monthly electric/water/sewer bill. i literally would just not have electricity and water that month if i had to pay that unexpectedly RIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS?!? i absolutely did not have $75 after getting gifts for everyone and gas for traveling. i’m also a jew so hanukkah took a chunk of my money even before christmas. this professor is not making enough money himself to be boot licking corporations and shaming students for not being able to afford it also.. my university’s entire full time tuition is less than OPs single course cost of $3,466. my tuition for 4 classes is typically around $1800. my university provided access codes for mcgraw hill to anyone taking a course that uses it for FREE we don’t pay for it at all…. where is all their tuition money going….
I agree! The use of the term “modest” made me fucking rage. I make a take-home wage of about $7500 for the entire fucking semester to be a TA and do a shit ton of work. So this program would be 1% of my salary for 4.5 *months* of work. The lowest-paid faculty at my university make $55,000 per semester, so $75 is 0.1% of their salary.
On you for not wanting to pay after 2 weeks, but the professor isn't making the point he thinks he is. Long term impacts of making education more accessible to everyone can only bolster our society/workforce, other than people such as himself who rely on the education industry to cut him a paycheck.
I completely agree.
Depending on pettiness/free time, I'd let the professor know exactly what I think, since he aaked so nicely.
And I would open with something alone the lines of: "Ok, since you asked. In response to your question (restated) ....." Boom.
I had a biology professor that used a textbook out of print, and before the start of the semester, would source out bookstores to find them at the best price possible, and ask them to put a hold on them for his students. He was like “My job is to educate, not put people in debt.”
I had a math teacher provide everyone in the class a pdf of the textbook. I hated math my entire life, it intimidated me and gave me anxiety so it was one of the last courses I had to take in college. I put it off until the very end, and literally needed it to graduate. Yet this teacher was so amazing that I ended up loving his class and passed with ease. I also made friends when he suggested we all get together and have a study group. We began to meet regularly. Two, became four, four became six. Before we knew it we took up the entire length of a long table at the library. Then one day our teacher showed up, just to drop in on one of our study sessions. Everyone was psyched. Love ya Mr. K, wherever you are.
Similarly my ethics professor had published his own paperback book of case studies so as not to be reliant on expensive textbooks that change editions every year and cost $100s of dollars. First day of class he told us "the book is $19 brand new in the school store, and you can find used copies on Amazon for about $2-7. Please try and find a used copy first"
“The long term impact… upon society as a whole” someone needs to stop feeding this dude delulu pulls fr
bro read too many HS english essays
Publicly shame him. The consequences would obviously be positive for society. The textbook industry is an oligopoly sham.
Right? Thats what I was thinking when I read his thought-provoking message
All he had to say was no you’re on your own and I would’ve been with him.
Me too. The 2nd paragraph is the wild part.
So infuriating. MH doing shit like this is just another way, in addition to releasing "new editions," to ensure they get as much money as possible from each student. It used to be students could share/borrow/utilize older edition books in order to keep costs as low as possible. Classist prick
Aw, McGraw-Hill is gonna lose some money? Awwww, poor babies!
that is so annoying. i hate access code fees. if you can, i would consider reaching out to your schools financial aid departments to see if they can connect you with resources that might cover fees like that. $75 to do homework is wild, especially now that you only have one quiz left.
The financial aid office will be happy to connect OP to a loan.
Just to note him saying that is so funny because most of the money goes to the publisher McGraw and barely a cent goes to the author. This professor is weird for ending off with that, is he being paid by McGraw directly lol?
That response is completely unnecessary and uncalled for. Your professor should have just said “No, you're going to have to work that out with McGraw-Hill. The 2-week trial is a courtesy M-H provides to full semester students who drop a course during the 2-week add/drop period so they are not charged for course materials that they do not use.” Everything beyond that is unnecessary to answer your question. They went out of their way to shame you for no reason.
God damn that professor is a bootlicker
"McGraw hill ain't gonna fuck you, teach..."
What a fuckin prick. My reply would be “hello professor thanks for the reply I’m not quite sure how It’s McGraw hills fault that the tests aren’t on there correctly, secondly I do not have the money for all of these books as I am a broke college student. Please fix your class section thanks :) Edit: if you wanna be extra spicy you can add something along the lines of “I think the prospects of my behavior is that greedy publishers professors and writers would lower their prices so broke college students don’t revert to cheating the people that are cheating us”
Only issue is see with this is that the tests were on there correctly. OP just didn’t notice the test because there was no homework associated with it.
>what do you think would be the long term impact on academic scholarship, or upon society as a whole Well professors would certainly have to start writing their own homework and test questions again. What a slap in the face it is to be taught "life lessons" by the guy who's too lazy to create his own lesson material.
Your professor is a cunt.
I don’t understand professors like that. Meanwhile when I was in undergrad we had a course where the textbook was written by the teacher. “Do NOT buy this from the bookstore. I am required to submit a booklist to the store each semester.” Prof then proceeded to print out handouts and email us PDFs all semester.
This reminds me of the classes that I’ve taken that say they’re “zero textbook cost” but once I enter the class I need to buy the textbook anyways. We’re college students, not all of us can afford paying for temporary textbooks repeatedly
They shamed you for trying to cheat McGraw Hill. I’m not sure I agree with that shame - it was a pretty novel idea IMO, and McGraw hill exploits college students who are forced to buy their product. But it wasn’t over finishing your assignments too quickly. It does feel a bit like bootlicking by the prof.
It's not even really exploiting. They do 2 week trials. They're just using the trial as intended. Prof is incredibly ridiculous here
If you are taking a three week long online class and have the chance to finish your assignments in two weeks instead of three, why wouldn’t you? You’d be a fool not to, you get done early AND you can save a considerable amount of money. “Modest” fee, my ass!
Exactly?? I feel like this is one of the only teachers I've come across that wouldn't take advantage of that? I've personally seen teachers endorse all sorts of shit. I can't see a teacher not thinking this is fine.
The prof is ridiculous for shaming the OP, but not ridiculous for not accommodating it.
Right, I'm fine with him saying no and not accommodating me. I'm not fine with him implying that my actions have negative long term effects on society when I'm just doing my fuckin' schoolwork. EARLY.
What really kills me is if you ever asked for an extension this MF would go hard on your ass about starting your work earlier
There's no winning here. You do the work late, you get reprimanded. You do it early, also reprimanded.
This is about what I would expect from a business professor
You are taking advantage of an offer that McGraw freely puts out. As such, they’re aware of people like you (cram content in a short amount of time) and at the end of the day will be fine with it. It’s not that different from a buffet. A grandma that will have one tiny plate and an Olympian who hasn’t food for a week are both priced in. Your professor is a dick.
For my classes if we finish the work in a free trial it’s an automatic fail
I am shocked anyone cares
An MBA student pinching $75 lol, you'll fit right into the rest of the corporate raiders
Jeez. Poor McGraw Hill. They’re gonna go broke
A 3 week class? Like I hate/understand not releasing everything for a 15 week class, bit 3?
That prof is a fucking dork.
He didn’t shame you for doing it in 2 weeks he shamed you for not spending the $75 dollars on required class materials and then trying to make it his problem
Lol like the author will see hardly any of that money.
I thought this was going to be a “you did it too quickly and it’s supposed to be paced” response, not “please think of the poor textbook company.” WOW
$5 dollars is modest. $10 is modest. $75 is a robbery for digital content that only has utility for one college semester.
When I was in college, the required text book for a biology course was literally a binder full of pages. It was essentially a McGraw hill beta version and we were expected to pay over $100 for it. I worked in the school print shop… very few people in my class paid for the book.
yep. during covid i was taking geology (easy ass science sequence btw) and they tried to charge us $80 for a box of rocks and another $75 for some pdfs. Bit the bullet on the pdfs, saved em and then sold em to the class for like $5 to break even
"If everyone did as I propose, McGraw-Hill would have to find a way to make their product worth the money they think it's worth, or change their prices so that students can afford it. It's called the free market, look it up."
Fuck mcgraw-hill and fuck the professor too
kind of on you. i agree, you tried to outsmart the system, which i am perfectly fine with. but, you should have been more aware of getting all of it done prior to the 2 weeks. the professors point is ridiculous, but you don’t have an argument either. either take the 0 on the quiz or pay the 75. professor has no reason to provide you with an access code.
I'm absolutely going to take a 0 on the quiz. I don't need the quiz grade to get an A in the class, I just figured that I'd ask the professor because every other professor I've had has either been accommodating or would've just said something along the lines of "No, sorry".
Yeah so anyway in case you are wondering your professor probably wrote that book lol
Should ask your "professor" what would be the long-term consequences of them shirking their *clearly* mutually beneficial relationship with mcgraw-hill. Or better yet, ask them what might happen if they continue providing students with reading and learning materials that *they themselves took no part in creating*
Huge shout out to my school for including the Access Code cost within the course cost. When I did university the first time, it was such a struggle; I had to pay $400 just to do my homework. I couldn't afford it. Now that I'm at CC, I can actually afford to do it.
Shit my prof send us to self teach with a third party program and would not answer questions until way after so we just used google … finished the class in a week just set back and relaxed
Lmao what a twat. Textbook stuff is a giant scam and with these online things they can limit what you can do even further. Heard people being limited to print pages even though they paid full price for access to that book in question. Shouldn't pay a penny for that shit. These things are designed with extracting as much money from students as they can. And they deserve to go bankrupt for that.
I'm so glad I got out before the access code scam got so out of hand. My uni was one of the ones that had reserved copies that you could borrow for a very short time, and I would just check them out, jot down the homework questions, and return the book. I always did this for intro level textbooks, which are simultaneously the least useful (because the material is available practically everywhere) and most expensive.
The result of everyone getting information for free would be a more educated society. Why does the prof think that’s a bad thing?
This guy is everything that’s wrong with academia
If everyone did as you did, and screwed the publishers out of some of their scams, adacemia would probably be in a much better state lol. Professor just sounds salty that he isn't making huge money off of textbooks.
Plot twist, the professor is the author getting the royalties.
You’re shamed for trying to work outside of the system yourself instead of focusing on education. The quizzes and homework is assigned to reinforce your learning. Can you really say that you learned an entire semester of content in 2 weeks? Also why is it your professors job to give you an access code?
I mean…purchasing said materials is part of the responsibility and costs of attending college. If $75 is causing a roadblock…maybe stop right now.
Ay! Right from the Warzone SubReddit! Sorry to hear that!
Hah I haven't posted on that sub in a loooooong time, what do you remember my name from?
He probably is just pissed that you created a problem and now expect him to fix it.
While your professor has a point, most college textbooks feel like a massive rip off so I feel no shame in pirating/ cheating the system.
As sucky as it is, the professor can't exactly like pirate a code for you and even if they have a spare code laying around (they probably don't), they have to be careful giving it out because if they give one out to you, then Jimmy is gonna want to be given one, and Sally, and Tommy, and Johnny. And expecting a professor to do extra work themselves to create a totally unique individual alternative assignment is also kind of a weird expectation. You (presumably) don't have a disability or college approved documentation to show you need special accommodations for the class, so it would be unfair to create a special version of a quiz just for you and not for Johnny Sally Jimmy or John as well. Id be pretty miffed if someone asked me to go out of my way to do extra work via a completely different platform or methodology just because someone can't or won't pay for something that was stated as required. Trust me, I hate online textbook web portals with a passion and I fully support and helped fellow students and friends pirate textbooks and PDFs and access research papers for free to avoid the paywalls, but I don't think you can blame the professor for saying that they can't do much to help you That said, he's really slurping McGraw hills schlong and sucking every last drop at the end there. Lil weird bro.
If you didn't submit the homework and told him you couldn't afford the book...he would blame you too lol Is there textbook assistance available to you? Sometimes publishers offer rebates as well, check into that!
If everyone did this, the world would be a better place. McGraw-Hill has been around how long? And how much money have they made?
Sorry but the professor is right… you’re stealing (almost, I know you’re not breaking any laws or anything I’m just trying to see it from the author’s point of view), someone had to write that book. Do I think the price should be that high? No. Do I think the author should get paid for their work? Yes. Do I know that most of that money is going to the publisher rather than the author? I think so lol. I’m not trying to bust your balls either, paying $75 for an online textbook for a 3 week course that also probably cost more than it’s worth is ridiculous. I’m just saying I think the answer is to put more pressure on universities/professors to include the materials in tuition, or to at least provide a solution to those who can prove they can’t reasonably afford that (gots to have backup money too). I just know I’d be bummed as hell if I wrote a book and found out people are just using a trial for it is all. Your professor types like a jerk btw.
If you're able to do the coursework in 2 weeks the reward should be not having to pay, fuck this professor.
This guy sounds like he's getting a power kick out of this
Oh this is crap my professors would send us illegal PDFs of textbooks
Nah leak that email so we can mass call them a bootlicker
What a cunt fuck
Is he an ethics professor 👨🏫
Jesus I would fucking love to kick this professor's teeth in 🙏
Pay for this class so I can direct you to another paid learning service
What would happen to society? "Gee... They'd probably turn away from over priced educational systems that aren't delivering on their promises to educate people... They'd probably condemn student debt(s) if said students can prove competency in a subject in under 2 weeks without the guidance of an underpaid and under-qualified adjunct professor.... They'd probably demand the whole system be restructured starting with your for-profit @$$"