How to Save Money at College with Cheap Textbooks

The transition from high school to college is one so many students look forward to, but the change is drastic. No more curfew with your parents, no more phone calls home when you miss a class. You probably don’t have anyone to wake you up in the morning to get you to class (or your mom calls you at 6 am every morning like your own personal alarm clock) and you’re suddenly not given books by your teachers to do your required work. You have to, gulp, purchase your textbooks. And they’re not like a book at the store; pretty cheap. They’re downright expensive. Some textbooks can range well into the hundreds of dollars, and the price is often enough to make you want to cry.

If you’re not a student but a parent bankrolling those textbooks and tuition payments, it’s still enough to make you want to cry. We don’t blame you. College is expensive. Fortunately, you can save a bit on textbooks. I don’t know if we can get you cheap textbooks to use or provide for your children’s use, but we can help you make them cheaper.

Rent Textbooks

One of the best ways to lower the price of a textbook is to rent it. Most college bookstores offer this option. You can rent a book for the semester, return it when classes are over, and pay only a nominal fee rather than an outrageous price. It’s not a bad trade-off, and it’s worth the peace of mind knowing that you can probably get all your textbooks as rentals for less than half of what you pay to actually purchase them.

Buy Used

It’s not a possibility when a new book comes out for a specific subject, but most of the time you can choose to purchase used books. We looked around for some books that are for common core classes most college freshmen take, and we found that you can buy new textbooks for most classes anywhere from $100 to $200 per book. Or, you can buy them used and spend $50-$75 per book.

Check Amazon

Believe it or not, you can get textbooks pretty cheap on Amazon. You just have to look around and find the exact book you need. You have to be very careful not to accidentally choose a book that’s not the right edition. There are so many authors, contributors and so many words in the title and edition numbers that it’s often easy to make this mistake.

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