Phone: (408) 924-3429
Email: financialaccounting@yahoo.com
Course: BUS 20, Introduction to Financial Accounting; BUS 20N, Survey of Accounting
Course Material: Discovering Accounting is an electronic textbook that has been created wsith SJSU's BUS 20 and 20N courses in mind. Most importantly, this textbook serves the needs of SJSU students while providing a low cost alternative to print textbooks, saving each student about $200 as compared to the print textbook that was previously in use. As the author of the e-textbook, I have combined my experience in public accounting and in teaching financial accounting to graduate and undergraduate students with my background in educational publishing with Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Cost of Material: $55
Textbook: Financial Accounting
Cost of Textbook: $255
Comments: As an instructor, I have been very frustrated by the significant increases I have seen in the cost of print textbooks over the past decade. At first, the cost increases were moderate, and the price of textbooks was considered to be "reasonable," since the books were published every 3 to 4 years, which allowed students to buy and sell used textbooks, allowing them to recoup much of the cost. However, this is no longer the norm: textbooks are now published every 1 to 2 years, essentially decimating the supply of used books and forcing students to purchase new textbooks every semester. This, coupled with the incredible price increases, has imposed an unnecessary financial burden on students, who are already having difficulty dealing with increases in tuition and fees. Over the past few years, I have found that fewer students are actually purchasing textbooks, instead preferring to "skate by": reading textbooks at the school library, at the tutoring center, sharing books with a friend, or simply forgoing a textbook altogether. My personal experience in speaking with these students is that the cost of a textbook is simply too high a burden for them to bear.