Textbooks are one of the biggest sources of financial strain for college students. It’s easy to forget about the cost of textbooks with the price of tuition so high, but on average students pay $900 a year—money that could probably have been better spent elsewhere. But you have to have a textbook for your class, or else you won’t have all the necessary information, so what other choice is there?
Thankfully, there are several budget options for students living on a shoestring, and for professors who want to help them out.
Open Source Textbooks
While it may seem like your professor doesn’t care much about your financial situation, the skyrocketing prices of textbooks have driven many professors to use or even write open source textbooks. These volumes are free online resources, and often just as accurate and informative as regular textbooks with the added benefit of interactive material like videos. Some of them are actually just the online versions of the same textbooks used in class, provided by the publisher, but more often they are put together by a volunteer or paid for by grants. Both individual states and the federal government have started putting together incentives for open source textbooks, recognizing the need of students.
There are literally thousands of free textbooks, ranging in quality, available online. Just a few websites where you can find them are:
There are some downsides to online textbooks, of course. First of all, they aren’t usually as neatly laid out as their physical counterparts, lacking in the fancy graphics and layout. Secondly, they don’t allow for margin notes or highlighting, which can really disrupt the studying process of some students.
Online/Computer Textbooks
Of course, not all online textbooks are for free. There are also a number of places where you can buy or rent eBooks for a third the price of buying a hardcopy version of the text. Many publishing companies offer online versions of their textbooks with reduced prices, and companies like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple have textbook rental options for their various tablets and readers. Websites like Textbook Media, Kno, CourseSmart.com and CengageBrain.com offer downloadable versions of textbooks for a nominal fee, which assures that students save money while publishers still see a profit margin.
Of course, these textbooks suffer from the same difficulties as the open source ones—most students prefer to have a physical copy, which can be marked up and highlighted. In fact, in recent Student PIRG studies, as many as ¾ of students say they prefer physical copies to digital ones, and only 30% say they would be willing to buy all of their textbooks in digital format. However, nearly 80% said that they would buy at least one textbook in digital form, which suggests that perhaps the medium will pick up as students grow accustomed to it.
Book Rentals
But for those of us who just like the smell of paper and the feel of a full volume in the hand, there are other, cheaper alternatives to the campus bookstore. One of these options is book rentals, which have been instated in some school bookstores and considered in others. The rental system would allow students to pay only about 30% of the price for the book, with the possibility of buying the rest of it later if they decide they want to keep it at the end of the quarter. These systems could save students quite a lot of money, but they are also quite expensive for schools to establish, and require that professors stick with the same text for 2-4 years, limiting their flexibility with material.
Seeing this problem, many online companies have capitalized on the idea of renting textbooks and offer the service for students online. Some of these websites are:
Each of these companies offers book rentals for a fraction of the full purchase price, with the promise that you’ll return it or pay the rest of the cost at the end of the agreed-upon rental period. One obvious drawback to this set up is that it also limits the amount of marking up and highlighting the student can do, since the book doesn’t belong to him or her, and it also means that the student doesn’t have the book for reference later. However, most students don’t keep their texts anyway—they sell them back to the school or other bookstores. To use this method, you also have to be pretty on top of your game, as the delivery time could mean that you start class without your text.
Ordering Online
Of course, most students have already figured this one out. Online retail sites like Amazon and barter sites like eBay offer prices on books that more than quarter the prices demanded by school bookstores. It can be challenging to find these books online, as many universities hide the ISBN number of their books to prevent just this thing, but recent federal legislation has now made that illegal. Thus, it’s easier than ever to find cheap copies of your book online.
One thing in particular to keep an eye out for is international versions of the assigned textbooks. These books contain the exact same information as the US version, but they’re published in paperback and for less than half the price overseas. Many overseas distributors make a business out of buying these books cheap and shipping them back into the United States, which was ruled legal by the Supreme Court in 1998. If you can get your hands on one of these books, you will be saving yourself quite a bit of money and lose none of the textbook value in the process.
To find textbooks for cheap online, check out these sites. Remember: searching for the text’s ISBN number is the best way to make sure you’re getting the correct edition.
eBooks
Of course, textbooks aren’t the only books that students need to buy. Many students majoring in the humanities have to buy fictional or philosophical works that have been around for ages, and while the individual books tend to be pretty cheap, they add up quite a bit over time. Fortunately, most of these “classic” texts have been around long enough to be public domain. That means that nobody owns the rights to the texts, and it is perfectly legal to distribute them for free online. Many companies have taken advantage of this, and you can find free eBook versions of just about any required texts in a classics, English or philosophy class. For starters, try searching these websites:
Ultimately, finding texts for cheap or even free online isn’t particularly difficult. Mostly, it just takes a little bit of patience, some skill with a search engine and a lot of forward planning. Campus bookstores might still be more convenient, but buying your books over the internet can save you more money than you probably even realize.
