We all know that one of the biggest expenses associated with college is textbooks. However what people forget to tell you is that there are lot of ways around this. If you’re willing to put in a little time and use text books that are less-than-perfect looking, you can save tons of cash (to be put towards grad school, or nine consecutive batches of jungle juice).
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1. Amazon.com: Unless your majoring in something obscure or your prof. is making you buy books that he’s published on the Guggenheim he keeps in his basement, you should be able to find most of your textbooks on Amazon. Simply type in the title, author or ISBN and click “New and Used from…” to browse their selection. Often you’ll find books for a few bucks (or a few cents!) and your book ends up costing just a bit more than shipping costs.
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To sell your books on Amazon.com set up a seller account and add items by ISBN (Amazon will usually provide a picture of the book cover). Don’t know which price to set for your used books? Take the lowest used price for that book and set a price a few cents below that–the pennies won’t make a difference and this will put your book at the top of the list. Make sure to post your books AS SOON AS your final is over–this will ensure that hungry buyers see your book first and you make a fast sell. Also, don’t worry about shipping costs; Amazon charges the buyer extra to cover that.
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2. Local Book-reselling Businesses: Most campuses have a few stores either on campus, like the bookstore, or off-campus that cater to students from that particular college or university. These places buy and resell books for the majority of students and are often well-versed in ripping you off. Go here to sell your Chem, Psych, Math or Bio books as you’ll usually get a good price for them but be wary when selling from other subjects. I would recommend bringing in a list of ISBNs or the actual books to get a price check if you’re selling and check them against the Amazon.com rates.
If you’re buying the same rule applies: go in and write down the prices for the books you need and check them against Amazon.
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3. Library Reserves: Be warned: I am partial to this option above all others, expect biased comments. Most students don’t know this, but professors at most colleges are required to put at least one set of course texts “On Reserve” in the campus library. On Reserve means that you can come into the library and check out these texts for 2 to 3 hours at a time, anytime you want during the term. You can take the books to a table or nearby cafe, do your homework or assigned reading, and even make copies if you want. Plus you usually don’t have to search for them yourself: the librarians keep all the On Reserve texts up front and will retrieve them for you upon request.
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If your professor doesn’t mention On Reserve at the beginning of the term, ask her. If she hasn’t put any texts On Reserve, ask her to do so. After I figured this out in my sophomore year I never bought a book again for school. I stayed on campus between classes and got all of my reading done at the library. It helped me focus and I got great peace of mind knowing that I was using these books for free.
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Bad things about On Reserve: You can’t write in the books, you can’t use them for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time, sometimes other students are using the books when you want to use them.
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Good things about On Reserve: You can make copies and write on those, it makes you do your homework efficiently in 2 hours or less instead of kind of doing it for five hours while watching America’s Next Top Model marathons, it’s FREE, not very many students know about On Reserve and even fewer actually use it, so it’s unlikely other students will ever be using the books.
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Okay, that’s about it! Hopefully you’ve learned that it’s very easy not to spend much (or any!) money on books during college. However now that you have all of this valuable information you have to make a choice:
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A) Make your parents’ day by letting them keep all the money you would have been spending on books, or:
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B) Tell them you’re still buying books at full price (while really getting them On Reserve) and using the money for something else…
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Happy Reading!
