BellaOnline Forums Education Colleges High Dollar Textbooks

The average cost for textbooks (for a full-time undergraduate) per semester is about $500 US.

How are you saving money on textbooks? Buying used? Sharing? Renting? Using library/professor copies? Hunt for e-book versions?

Post your suggestions for saving money on textbooks here!

I always bought used and sold them back at the end of the semester. The year I started college was the first year the internet was available at the university and we had dial-up modems that were 9600 bps, my home computer was 1200 bsp, LOL. Ebook versions we're an option then.

I never shared books because I saw it as too difficult to arrange who has the book when, especially before exams.

Meg

I buy used--online, that is--sometimes I also buy the previous editions, as they're virtually the same. Obviously, you can't sell a previous edition back to the bookstore later, but really, what does it matter as they're just going to give you peanuts anyway--if they're even buying back your particular book(s) (I was always plagued with a prof who never turned in his book lists or something so they were never buying back my books anyway. We won't go into my opinion that if the bookstore sells a book, they should be required to buy it back).

I haven't tried re-selling my books on Amazon or anything, mostly because I've been too lazy to set up an account and try it, but I'm sure I could.

Has anyone tried searching for their textbooks on any of the e-book copy sites? (We won't go into copyright violations here.) I've been told that there are people scanning textbooks and some companies have even signed up to have their textbooks made available through free sites.

I got used to hunt for e-books and use library and professor copies.