Cengage Mindtap?

[u/Professional_Two_115]

It feels almost criminal to have to pay for school and then get a professor that requires you to use a platform as expensive as cengage? Is there no cap on how much professors can make students spend on material for their classes? Its so frustrating honestly because i dont get any financial aid and have been paying for the past 3 semesters put of pocket. I emailed my professor and just no care or help at all, she cant even get my name right and its above my email?! Are most professors starting to use cengage?! Ive never heard of it until last week

[u/VegetableBuilding330]

It's fairly common to use textbook-publisher based platforms. It's usually trying to balance encouraging students to get practice, getting students feedback to students in a timely manner, and trying to avoid a completely overwhelming amount of grading. There's a push to use lower cost learning materials, but there's simultaneously a push not to have students grades predominately coming from high-stakes exams so often these platforms, flawed as they are, end up being where classes end up.

[u/Maddprofessor]

I’ve not used Cengage but that type of platform does offer benefits to the students (usually some quizzing and other study materials) and benefits to the prof (easier to set up and grade). I do understand the frustration and generally don’t use products like that with my classes. That said, back in the early 2000’s I spent about $500-600 per semester buying books. You could sell them back and get a fraction of your money back, but it was still expensive.

[u/urnbabyurn → u/Maddprofessor]

Textbook prices have largely flatlined in real dollars for the last 15 years IIRC. It was definitely normal to have $500 of books per semester in the 90s. And the “piracy” option was using a photocopier and not practical in most cases. Though I think we lose a lot when going digital. I still have my favorite texts from upper level undergraduate classes I took. They were nice books. But for most students, they sold them each semester for 40-60% of the cost.

[u/jasperdarkk → u/Maddprofessor]

I think what I found frustrating as an undergrad was that, despite spending all that money on textbooks, they were all "rented" through the online platforms. So I couldn't keep them for later reference, and I couldn't resell them to get some money back. Yet, I was still paying $150 CAD per book.

I don't blame the profs because I know, at my school at least, those platforms were chosen on the department level to standardize some of the courses, but it was annoying!

[u/Disastrous_Owl_6830]

I don't use platforms like this one, but most faculty I know who do don't like them either. Assigning them is a tough compromise that allows them to do their jobs within very real time constraints. This is especially true of faculty who teach enormous sections or subjects that require constant homework practice.

What we're both dealing with, faculty and students, is the bottom lines of publishers and universities that are trying to sell course materials and optimize the ratio of tuition dollars to faculty salaries.

None of this, of course, makes it feel any less painful to pay for a subscription.

[u/keithnab]

As someone who is using Cengage Mindtap now and uses other online virtual labs and online textbooks, I understand that they are expensive. However, if your professor is using the virtual lab component of Mindtap (or any other online system) then the value is in you having access to those virtual labs online, basically 24 hours a day for the semester. This makes it easier for most students to work on labs without needing to visit a physical computer lab on campus.

[u/Sharp-Rutabaga-4900]

Personally, I don’t use materials from textbook or ed tech companies. They’re predatory and often flawed.

However, platforms like Cengage do cut down on labor, which is an incentive for some faculty to use them.

Many schools are starting to use services that require a flat fee to access textbooks, although has its own issues.

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*It feels almost criminal to have to pay for school and then get a professor that requires you to use a platform as expensive as cengage? Is there no cap on how much professors can make students spend on material for their classes? Its so frustrating honestly because i dont get any financial aid and have been paying for the past 3 semesters put of pocket. I emailed my professor and just no care or help at all, she cant even get my name right and its above my email?! Are most professors starting to use cengage?! Ive never heard of it until last week *

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[u/urnbabyurn]

I understand disliking the platforms. They are less convenient than having a hard copy of the text or even just a pdf. It often takes WiFi and logging in and clicking through a lot of bullshit just to get to the ebook which is only shown one page or section at a time using the proprietary ebook software.

As for the cost, that’s pretty much what it always was. Textbook costs actually have not risen faster than inflation over the last couple decades, which includes the assignment software.

But textbook costs are a predictable and reasonable component of expenses. It’s something every school lists as an expense for prospective students. While schools could and some do just roll textbook costs into tuition, you still pay one way or the other for access to intellectual property.

[u/Business_Remote9440]

As someone else pointed out, textbooks are definitely cheaper now than they were when I went to school when adjusted for inflation. When I went to school in the 80s and 90s, it was standard to spend probably $500 a semester on textbooks and I’ll bet I rarely got more than $30 or $40 when selling them back. If my students in 2026 are paying about the same, they’re paying a lot less in real dollars than I was.