Save money on College Textbooks
How to Save money on College Textbooks
In the article “America’s Biggest Rip-offs” by Julianne Pepitone (featured Monday, February 1, 2010), college textbooks were listed as having a huge markup. You can save some money buying used textbooks. Here are some ways to save money on college textbooks:
- College libraries usually keeps one copy of each textbook the college uses. If you only need a book for a few weeks or one assignment, you can often get it from the library. This is especially useful in classes with multiple books, such as history and English where several biographies are read during the course. Try to stay ahead of assignments to be able to get the book before everyone else in your class wants it.
DISCOUNT TEXTBOOK RESOURCES
- Amazon textbook prices are typically cheaper than your college bookstore, and offers a free Prime membership trial with textbook orders
- eBay has new and used textbooks, just make sure it is the edition you need and it comes with any extras (workbook, CD, etc)
- Buy.com has discounts on textbooks
Rent a textbook
Coursesmart.com has books online and available for download. I was very impressed with my book from Coursesmart - you can highlight text, copy and paste, make notes in the margin, and print the book. The CourseSmart book was about $20 cheaper than it was in my college bookstore. Print all of the book or only the pages you need, nice way to go green on textbooks. Save 50% on your class textbooks at Coursesmart.com
College Textbook buy back: Selling your book back to the college bookstore for cash
It’s a win-win for textbooks you don’t wish to keep: you get a percentage of the book value back as cash for selling the book back at the end of the semester, the school gets a book they can resell to another student and make money again.
Some tips to increase the cash back value of your textbook:
- The textbooks value is based on how many they will need for next semester. If possible, sell your book back before the final exam, not after, to ensure that yours is purchased back by the bookstore at the highest price they are willing to pay.
- Try to keep the textbook in reasonably good condition during the semester. Highlighting is usually fine, a ripped cover may damage your book value.
- If a price is much lower than you would wish to get for selling your book, consider holding on to it for another semester or selling it yourself on eBay, Amazon or Half.com