This is great! Although I am no longer a student (it's my spouses turn) I stumbled upon second hand books a few years ago, and was shocked at the savings. One in particular was an 80pg text for a Hydrology course, and it was worth $165 Cdn, at our college book store, but I scored a mint condition one online for $16 (cdn, and included shipping). For a student on a limited budget this was HUGE savings! No one else in my class could be bothered, but I ended up making money on the deal when I sold the book back to the bookstore for $45!

Thank. You.

The worst part about accounting is that the books get updated every year (new laws). Any book I can snag for a deal is amazing. Thanks for looking out for us students!

This likely only works for humanities majors, but it's worth a try no matter what. I bought only around 15% of my textbooks, for classes like psych or computer science. For history, english, etc. just go to the library as soon as you get your book list. Most schools have multiple copies of books, or have connections so you can borrow from other schools, and in that case you can often even wait until you need the book to check it out. Just keep on top of due dates and be sure to renew your books before they're due. I just graduated, and throughout four years I only had to pay $25 because they claimed I didn't return one book, and then a few bucks in late fees.

I can't believe that no one's mentioned renting textbooks through Chegg! Textbooks available for rent on Chegg are normally half price, you can highlight in them, and return shipping is paid.

The best part is that they MUST take back your textbook. If a new edition comes out the semester after you use a book, then bookstores or online sites often refuse to buy it back. In theory, you get half of what you've paid by selling back textbooks, but I've been offered too little (sometimes as low as $0.25) too many times.

This past year I've been able to get quite a few books for my daughter (English and history major) through PaperBackSwap. I had plenty of credits and the sender of the requested book paid the price of media mail to get the books to me.

I also posted and mailed out a couple of textbooks my daughter and my son had used and decided not to sell back to the bookstore on campus. Again, all I paid was the media mail rate to mail the book, and when it was received I got another credit to use for more books.

Betterworld.com has: 1) an ENORMOUS selection of books, 2) the shipping is almost free in the US with just a $0.27 charge for carbon free shipping ($3.97 for international shipping which you cannot beat with a stick - I know - I've tried), and 3) the money goes toward global literacy programs. I live in Belgium and have only been buying from Betterworld.com for 3 or 4 years now. I have never had a single problem with them (and I buy alot). I'm sure you've heard the saying "if it seems to good to be true, it probably is". I keep looking for the trick or the loophole but have yet to find it.

Ooooof! I wish I'd read this information a few years ago when 3 of our kids were in college simultaneously. Talk about trashing your budget!!! We used Abebooks.com and Barnesandnoble.com and saved some serious money with used textbooks, but it looks like these rates are even better.

I took classes myself and used books several editions out of date or went to the library for humanities class literature resources as a previous poster suggested. I got by OK and passed each class doing this, but it was a lot more work for a student with limited time who was working their way through school. None of the page numbers matched up with my syllabus and a few chapters/topics had been added that the old books didn't have. I also got caught with my pants down a few times because some information in the old text had changed over time and I had learned the wrong answer. Still ... I didn't have money for both tuition and books, so this enabled me to take the classes and pass with at least a "B."

CLEP out of as many general education requirements as you can (if you have kids still in high school, encourage them to take Advanced Placement classes to accomplish essentially the same thing). For $55 you earn 3 college credits to put towards your degree. Some colleges won't accept CLEP or transfer credits, but all will let you take the next higher level class, so either way you win! If it's going to cost you $30,000 either way, you might as well take quantum physics sophmore year from the nobel laureate professor instead of 3 years of Calculus and not have to pay $60,000 to take that same class as a "graduate" student because you wasted the first 4 years of college fulfilling GER's and rudimentary field-of-study classes.

If your town landfill has a swap shop, you'll frequently stumble across old textbooks too out of date for a traditional class, but perfectly acceptable to study for the CLEP exam because the information is still good and you're not catering to a teachers idea of how you should regurgitate the knowledge on a test. I CLEP'd out of U.S. History, Biology, and Algebra I and II and wish I'd learned about this trick earlier (could have saved myself $30,000). The information CLEP tests you on is mainstream, so almost any old textbook can be used for self-teaching. My Algebra I text was an old military officer training book from World War I and my biology textbook was from the 1970's (though I also scanned a "reserve" textbook at the library to fill in blanks because I noticed a lot of DNA information was missing).

Some colleges, such as Lesley University in Cambridge, have distance programs where you take a weeklong seminar on campus, propose which subject/class you would like to self-learn and work with an course advisor to piece together your own class and degree program (Intensive Residency Option program), then go home to finish your work on your own. They encourage you to go to the "source" to learn each subject (such as actually reading Freud, Jung, Watson and Piaget to learn psychology instead of reading a paragraph about them from a textbook). This is how I finished the last 60 credits of my bachelor's degree. You read the books, write a paper outlining what you learned, and you get your grade. The first semester we went to the bookstore and bought used books, but by the second semester I smartened up enough to check what was available through inter-library loan first and only bought books I couldn't borrow for free. Since most primary sources are readily available for free, I saved a bundle. However, to do this, you need to be self-motivated and disciplined enough to stick to your own program (good for getting yourself through college, not so good for your 19-year-old kid).

If you take a foreign language class, instead of paying a fortune for all the expensive bells and whistles that go with your textbook that most people never end up using, you can download free supplemental foreign language texts and audio drills already paid for by your tax dollar decades ago at the Foreign Service Institute website.

Well ... we've got 3 more kids who will also be heading off to college in a second budget-busting block in a few more years. Thanks everybody for the useful information!!!

for putting the Teen Study Bible at the top of the stack of textbooks. :)

I was just getting ready to make a post regarding Chegg as I had purchased a book from the company and saved a bundle in comparison to how much it would of cost me had I purchased it outright.

I just started my Doctorate and I've got three years (maybe four depending) of high priced books. Since I went through my IT degree, the majority of those books were kept for future reference however there were some that I did sell back. With my Masters, all material was computerized (e-book) since I did a lot of research and writing of thesis papers.

As for the Doctorate, I just started so I'm not sure how that's going to work out but I did see the university which I am attending has e-books which is fine. I'm specializing the Doctorate in marketing, finance, and international business so depending upon the text, will determine whether or not it gets kept.

That is something else that should be considered, if the book can help you as a future reference is something wanted to be kept, it is best to determine what type of media can be be purchased within your budget.

Good luck on studies!

Regards,
S.L. Elvins, MBA Business Administration, BSMIS

One of the cheapest ways to save money on books is to borrow them from the library. My school allows you to check out a book for the entire semester. Also, even though some class textbooks may be on reserve... you really just need a few hours with them. Better than dishing out 100 bucks.

With regards to price comparison sites, I found GPABook to be quite useful. Bigwords has more features, but GPABook has course reviews integrated with comparison tool.

But as always, you can always ask around. A lot of people have taken the class before, but still have the book lying around. Maybe you can get their old exams too =)

You can also check out www.DealOz.com , DealOz compares 200 bookstore prices and free discount coupons too. Their coupons are valid and have saved over $500 on my textbooks.