College Textbooks: Overpriced Yet Quickly Depreciate

Textbooks....everyone gripes about their price and often about reading them. It's simply a matter of supply and demand that textbooks are so expensive, yet they often come close to being the feather that breaks the camel's back. Especially for incoming freshman who are pressured into buying from the school bookstore before classes start, the total cost can range from $500-$1000!

You (or especially your parents) might feel that you need to buy the books right away before classes start, or you'll be at a serious disadvantage. However, a few things can mitigate the disadvantage of waiting for a used book to be delivered. First, check to see if your school library keeps copies of the textbooks you'll be using. You can often borrow those while you wait for your book to be delivered. Second, get you know your neighbors in the class, and call upon them when you need your book. Establishing these sorts of relationships early will make the rest of the semester go much more smoothly. Third, if you have teaching assistants, they often have the books that they rarely use, so ask if you burrow from them. You wouldn't need much more than a week, so they'd be obliged.

I highly recommend purchasing your books used online (with the exception of workbooks). Also, don't be afraid of buying an older edition of the text. Most book publishers change very little from edition to edition, and if the homework problems are different, you can look of a friend's text while in a study group. For the minor inconvenience of an older edition, you pocket MAJOR savings. For example, if I bought all my books new this upcoming semester, I would've shelled out about $700, as a microbiology major. Buying my books used online, including shipping, cost me only $260!

Some might say that the $440 I saved is nothing compared to the price of room, board and tuition. While this is true, $440 for a frugal college student will go a long way! If you loved Chinese delivery for instance, how many cartons of egg foo young (my favorite) could you buy for that amount? About 80 cartons!

Now assume lets assume that I bought the books new, then planned to resell them. I would, assuming I sell them without a middleman, probably make that $260 back. I'd be taking a $440 loss. Because you gain almost the same value from old textbooks as new, buying new textbooks are one of the worst investments you can make.

As far as where to buy used textbooks online, there are many options. I tend to prefer going through hubs like Amazon and Ebay because I like the extra security they provide when shopping with individual merchants. Also, be sure to look up used bookstores in your city. Here in Rochester, there's a great store that trades in most of the books local colleges use regularly. The prices usually aren't better than those online, but you save on shipping.