Tips For Saving Money On Your College Textbooks

By Author: Groshan Fabiola
Total Articles: 2678
Comment this article

With the overall costs of college tuition spiraling upwards with each passing year, the last thing students or parents want and need is to be charged top-dollar on textbooks and other printed educational materials too.

Since certain textbooks are mandatory, even if someone settles for the most basic curriculum-required titles, they still may have no other choice but to invest as much as $500 on those text materials for each semester of college. This estimated figure covers mostly new edition textbooks, which, unfortunately, rarely hold decent resale value. To get an idea of how much money goes down the drain in such instances, find out that most brick-and-mortar bookstores and other specialized offline retailers that accept used textbooks rarely offer buy-back deals that cover for more than 10% of the original price of such items. Not much of a deal, is it?

So what can you do to cut back the costs on your textbooks significantly? To find out, check out the tips provided below.

Opt for Used Textbooks Instead: As long as the items are in good condition, you can always buy textbooks on the second-hand ...
... market to save some money. Whether you purchase them from an online seller or your local campus bookstore, used textbooks are usually a good deal all round, so don't hesitate to explore this alternative when on a tight budget.

Shop Online: For a wider selection of titles, as well as better cost-efficiency and convenience, turn to the internet and look for a reputable online-based bookstore with an offer that appeals to you. Internet bookstores are great sources of affordable printed text materials, including new and used textbooks. Besides the option to buy textbooks for lower than the market price, with prominent internet bookstores you also get to sell textbooks for reasonable prices so that you can recover some of your original investment. If you look deep enough and don't mind chasing limited offers and discounts, you may be able to sell textbooks for up to half their original cost or sometimes even more!

Go Electronic: With the advent of the digital era, numerous publishers have made the transition from printed publications to e-books, since the latter are much more advantageous to editors, retailers and buyers alike. For you, as a buyer, besides the plus in terms of convenience they offer (just think about it - your notebook can store thousands of volumes, which means you no longer have to carry voluminous physical textbooks with you for classes), electronic textbooks also come as a sensibly cheaper alternative to their printed equivalents.

Buy/ Sell Textbooks from/ to Fellow Students: Very popular these days among budget-conscious students, this practice too can help you steal better deals on your educational materials or put some money back into your pocket at the end of the semester. Simply pinpoint your potential clients or suppliers around campus by word-of-mouth, put your negotiation skills to the test, and you are set!

Hit the Library More Often: College and university libraries generally keep copies of required textbooks and make them available for temporary check out. This might help you eliminate the need to buy some textbooks, but only if you have plenty of time on your hands to hang around in the library. In addition to that, since as a student you are only allowed to check out books for a couple of hours or so at a time, you will most likely become caught up in a back and forth race to and from the library, not to mention you will have to study faster than usual. If you can pull this off though, you can forget about shedding extra money out of your pocket for new textbooks; well, for some of them at least.

For more resources about where to buy textbooks or to sell textbooks, please review these links.