4 Ways to Save Money on Textbooks

By Kaitlin Hurtado on November 8, 2017

When people think of college, they often think about how expensive it is — most often about the overall value or tuition cost. Many do not consider all the small factors that contribute to how expensive college can be until they are actually in college and seeing what they need to spend money on, especially when financial aid fails to cover all expenses. There is housing (furnishing, rent, utilities, household items), dining (groceries, eating out), and school-related costs like supplies, transportation, parking permits, and the all-too dreaded textbooks.

Sadly, textbooks aren’t always found at the price we want them to be and sometimes you really can’t get by in a class without the textbook. Instead of resorting to buying every textbook your professor suggests at whatever price you can find them, try adopting some of the following methods to save money on textbooks next term.

Don’t buy the first listing you see 

You can often find college textbooks in a wide variety of places. Some are easier to come across than others, depending on how old the textbook is, and how often they are used for classes. You may automatically go to the campus bookstore to purchase your textbooks, but your campus bookstore may not be your best option as they tend to have higher prices as resellers.

When shopping for textbooks, be prepared to run through a few Google searches to find the pricing you want and the textbook condition you want. Keep multiple tabs open to compare different prices to get the best deal for you, and if you’re lucky, you may be able to find a website that offers to match the lowest price you find from another listing.

Consider different sellers

The internet makes it much easier for you to consider different sellers other than your campus bookstore and local bookstores. One quick Google search of your textbook’s ISBN number can bring several different legit results for you to pick from. Places like Amazon, Chegg, and Uloop post listings from varied sellers, making it much easier to connect with an individual seller and/or retailer.

Aside from bigger retailers, you can also sort through posts on local Facebook pages to find your textbooks for much cheaper prices. For every college campus, there are often Facebook pages dedicated to helping students find and sell textbooks among themselves. By picking this option, you are able to find cheaper listings and make them even cheaper by negotiating directly with other student sellers. With student sellers, you can also arrange to meet up on campus or near campus to save on shipping costs that you would have to pay from other online retailers.

Weight the benefits of  renting or buying textbooks

Buying a textbook may be high on your priorities list. You have full ownership of the textbook so you can highlight and mark up the textbook as you wish without facing any fees at the end of the term. If you plan on keeping a textbook for reference, past the term it is necessary for, you should definitely purchase the textbook so you don’t rent it and end up regretting losing out on keeping the textbook as a reference in the future.

On the other hand, renting allows you to skip out on the trouble of reselling your textbook once you are done with it. Sometimes, you buy a textbook with the thought of reselling the textbook (getting your money back, even making a profit off of it), however, if a professor changes up the textbook they require students to use, you will be out of luck as no one will want to purchase a textbook they won’t need or that is an edition they don’t necessarily need.

When you can, don’t spend money on the book

Sometimes, books will not be required by professors. Meaning, you won’t be evaluated for information that is exclusive to the textbook and that the textbook is more of a backup source for your own studying. Regardless of whether a textbook is required or not, professors may also have copies of the course textbook(s) available to students on reserve in a campus library. These textbooks can be checked out for days at a time to be taken home and used for studying, or for hours at a time in the library.

Either way, this option allows you to save money from buying a book that you will open for one assignment or to look up one bit of information while studying.

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