Are Textbooks Weighing You Down?

Let's face it, the cost of college is expensive! Things keep getting more expensive and the cost of a college education is rising just as fast. In particular, textbook prices are quite inflated and sometimes shockingly so.  Even when compared to other books of similar size and quality, the ones desginated as college texts and sold at the campus bookstore have prices that seem hard to justify. A post by John Baez on the n-category cafe titled Cheaper Online Textbooks?. Baez’s post has a number of interesting links. So, reading about all these posts, I began to wonder: are textbooks getting too expensive? And what to do about it? 

Many factors go in to the high cost of college textbooks, but there are also some ways you can avoid the middle-men and fees when you’re preparing for school.

Campus Bookstore

If you’re going to sell books, you need somewhere to sell them from!  If you’re buying books in person, the store is paying rent on the facilities, and they’re probably paying a premium to get their textbooks on campus.  Bookstores on campus tend to be particularly expensive, because the university charges an extra fee to whichever company rents the spaces closest to where the students are at. Buying your textbook online can help you avoid many of these costs because a single company can serve students nationwide.

Use it Five Months, Pay for a Lifetime

Many books have a limited usefulness.  A class only lasts a few months, but the book you’ve bought is yours forever.  The campus bookstore allows you to trade in or cash out your books at the end of the semester, but they’ll often just give you pennies on the dollar of what you originally paid.  Instead of trying to haggle for a good deal on your used books, why not just buy and sell your books online instead in the first place:  pay less up front, and just sell it back when you’re done. My favorite website for saving on books is amazon.com it offers a wide variety of new and used textbooks for an affordable cost. Its a lot easier than trying to find a buyer who will give you a decent price!