I won't belabor the point about textbooks being TOO expensive. (We already covered that in this other blog post.) Now I find out that one of our alternatives is seemingly under fire...
In this article from Publisher's Weekly, publishers forced a settlement last week with vendors who were selling international versions of textbooks to US students. For those who aren't aware, international students don't pay nearly what you do for the same book -- they wouldn't stand for it. So they get a book with not-quite-as-fancy printing but essentially the same innards as the one you buy, only it costs a hell of alot less.
(Don't for a minute think that the scaled back printing is responsible for the price reduction -- we covered that in this other blog post.)
So now the publishers have decided to cut US students off from one of their lower cost alternatives. Fight back -- buy used, buy old, or don't buy at all!