Why College Students Are Stealing Their Textbooks

Why College Students Are Stealing Their Textbooks
Textbooks sit on shelves at the Chegg Inc. warehouse in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, U.S., on Thursday, April 29, 2010. No more $120 chemistry books. That's the message from textbook-rental service Chegg Inc., which is urging college students to stop paying top dollar to buy their tomes.Photographer: John Sommers II/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Textbooks sit on shelves at the Chegg Inc. warehouse in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, U.S., on Thursday, April 29, 2010. No more $120 chemistry books. That's the message from textbook-rental service Chegg Inc., which is urging college students to stop paying top dollar to buy their tomes.Photographer: John Sommers II/Bloomberg via Getty Images

College students have long complained about the ridiculously high cost of textbooks. But irritation over price gouging is now morphing into a kind of rebellion. A large chunk of students are done shelling out $100 apiece (or more) for textbooks they barely use, and they have no qualms about breaking the law to get the materials for free.

One student took to his Tumblr page last year to vent his frustration—and the massive reaction he got speaks volumes about students’ mindset on the issue. The blogger complained about the pressure to purchase an updated version of his “sadistic” professor’s sociology book. “I left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200,” the student lamented, anonymously.

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