Some college textbooks can cost $200 each and the average student spends about $1,200 just on books and supplies alone. That’s an insane price for something vital to your classes! When you add those costs on top of all your other expenses, it’s hard to afford the books that are necessary to complete your college education. Thankfully, there are ways to cut down those costs and save big. Whether you rent or buy textbooks, there are some hacks you can use to lower the price of your books.
Here are seven of our favorites.
1. Use the ISBN to Price Compare
Every book has an ISBN. It stands for “International Standard Book Number.” You can find this number on your college online library or bookstore. Write it down, and use it to price compare with the books available at your university store and different book retailers online.
You can buy college books at any common retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CheapestTextbooks.com, eBay, and CengageBrain.com to name a few.
The internet is full of book retailers, so don’t stop there. You can also try Goodwill or even secondhand swap sites like LetGo or Mercari. If your college town has a second-hand book store, you might be able to find great deals there.
The point is, the ISBN can help you find the exact book and compare prices. Prices vary all around the internet, so with a bit of sleuthing, you can snag the best deal possible.
2. Go Digital
You might be a die-hard fan of print books. But instead of buying college textbooks, going digital can help you save some money.
On top of that, you can still make notes in your ebooks with a device like a Kindle. Some books come in an audiobook format, which means you can multitask as you study. It’s a great way to pull double duty with your studying, and may even help you fight procrastination.
Pro-Tip: If you just need a textbook for one page, you can even buy individual chapters on some textbooks for a fraction of the cost.
3. Rent Don’t Buy
Buying a textbook is expensive. Unless you want to hold onto your college textbooks until your dying days, you can rent your textbooks for a lot cheaper than paying full price.
Some students worry about being able to take notes in a rented textbook. Don’t worry. Instead of writing directly in the book, you can fill the pages with sticky notes.
There are even transparent sticky notes (shaped like a ghost if you like!) They help you see through the note onto the page itself, so you can still highlight and underline parts of the passage you think are important.
4. Take Advantage of Your Local Libraries
Libraries make learning accessible to people everywhere and they may hold the textbook that you need.
It’s best to go early since you likely won’t be the only student to have this idea, and textbooks are undoubtedly in limited supply. But if you can borrow a textbook from your library, that means you get to use it completely free.
5. Get Last Year’s Edition
New editions are top-dollar books. And most likely, they only changed a few grammatical errors or elaborated on a paragraph here or there.
Read a review of the new textbook and contact your professor to see if you need the new edition. If the differences are only minor, you can probably get away with buying or renting a copy of the previous edition and save big bucks doing so.
6. Be Careful Where You Sell Your Textbook
Just like it’s worth it to do some price scouting when you buy your textbook, it’s worth it to do the same thing when you sell it.
Pro Tip: Your university most likely isn’t the best option. They’ll buy back your textbook but only at a fraction of the price you paid for it.
You’ll probably have much better luck selling it peer-to-peer in your community, or on a platform like Amazon or eBay.
If you stay in your college town the following year, there will likely be students hunting for your old textbook when next semester rolls around.
7. Share a Book and Split the Price
Make friends with students who are pursuing the same major you are. When you do that, you can usually find someone willing to go in and share the cost of a textbook with you.
This is especially useful if you’re in one of the majors with the most expensive textbooks. On top of saving money on books, you get to meet fellow students who share the same passion. You get an instant study-buddy, and potentially a new lifelong friend.
If you decide to go this route, make sure it’s easy to share the book between the both of you and you’re not vying for it at the same time. If you need to, you can make copies of vital pages like homework problems so you can both work on them at the same time.
You can also decide to set up study sessions together so you both have access to the book.
You Can Save Money Whether You Rent or Buy Textbooks
Whether you decide to rent or buy textbooks, there are things you can do to cut down that hefty price tag. These seven tips can help. If you need help covering that cost, we have advice here.
Our goal is to help you find the most affordable textbook prices on the internet. Browse our books to see if we have the right text for you.
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