How to Buy Your Textbooks without Breaking the Bank

College textbooks are known for being absolutely vital in learning course material, but they are also known for being outrageously expensive. Students can spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks in one semester alone. Unfortunately, when it comes time for schools to buy the books back, students rarely make any of that money back, even if they were extra careful to not dog ear pages and resisting the urge to highlight vocabulary. With the cost of college growing every year, students are doing all they can to cut back costs. But there are ways you can buy your textbooks without breaking your bank account.

In some classes you are going to absolutely buy a brand new, unmarked textbook. This is most likely because there are exercises in the book that you will need to turn in or work through. But most of the time, it won't hurt to buy a used book and most college bookstores sell them. In college towns, used textbooks are often in high demand and sell out quickly. If you don't buy early, you could find yourself without a book the first day of class. But if you have a few days before your first assignment, consider searching for it on used book sites like Amazon and Half.com. These sites allow people from all over the country to put their old books up for sale and for you to buy, most of the time for a much lower price.

College textbooks are updated practically every other year. While the latest editions are sold at full price, older editions immediately depreciate in value. When it comes to spending $100 on the newest edition versus $5 on the one published a year before, students should ask themselves what the difference is. Common changes in between editions pertain to the chapters, which are often added, rearranged, or taken out completely. One way to tell if this has been done is to compare both editions' companion sites, which usually include a list of the chapter titles in each book. Depending on the similarity of the chapters, you will know if it's necessary to spend your money on the newer one. If you end up buying an earlier edition and you have a page specific reading assignment, compare your book with a classmates'. You don't want to make a D on a quiz just because you accidentally read about the endocrine system instead of the exocrine system.