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Higher education
更烧钱的教育
Why textbooks cost so much
课本这么贵为啥哩
It's Economics 101
经济学主要章节
STUDENTS can learn a lot about economics when they buy Greg Mankiw's “Principles of Economics”—even if they don't read it. Like many popular textbooks, it is horribly expensive: 292.17 on Amazon. Indeed, the nominal price of textbooks has risen more than fifteenfold since 1970, three times the rate of inflation.
当学生们购买Greg Mankiw写的《经济学原理》,他们可以学习很多经济学知识—即使他们只买不读。如同众多流行教材，它贵的离谱：在亚马逊上要花费292.17美元。确实，课本的虚价从1970年开始疯涨了15倍，是通货膨胀率的三倍。
Like doctors prescribing drugs, professors assigning textbooks do not pay for the products themselves, so they have little incentive to pick cheap ones. Some assign books they have written themselves. The 20m post-secondary students inAmericaoften have little choice in the matter. Small wonder textbooks generate megabucks.
正像医生们开的药物那样，教授们布置的这些教材并不用他们自己付钱，因此他们对于挑选廉价教材没有太多动力。一些人吩咐学生买他们自己写的书籍。美国两千万的高年级学生经常在这件事上没多少选择。课本产生巨大效益也就不足为奇。
But hope is not lost for poor scholars. Foreign editions are easy to find online and often cheaper—sometimes by over 90%. Publishers can be litigious about this, but in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have the right to buy and resell copyrighted material obtained legally. Many university bookstores now let students rent books and return them. Publishers have begun to offer digital textbooks, which are cheaper but can't be resold. And if all else fails, there is always the library.
但是贫穷的学者们不会丧失希望。网上很容易找到国外版本，而且往往更便宜，有时候价格能低到将近一折。出版商们对此怨念不已，但是2013年最高法院裁决美国人有权购买或重卖合法占有的合法出版物。许多大学书店现在准许学生租借书籍并到时返还。出版商们开始提供电子版教科书，这种更便宜但是不可出售。而且如果所有方法都失败了，图书馆永远对你开放。
