Nicole Allen
Director of Open Education, SPARC
With the summer now halfway over, students and their parents are looking ahead to college in the fall. In addition to budgeting for rising tuition costs, students are facing ever-increasing costs for their textbooks. Over the past decade, textbook prices have grown at three times the rate of inflation. This additional expense only adds to the trillion dollar debt problem our students currently face.
According to the College Board, books and supplies now average around $1,200 per year, almost 40% of the cost of tuition and fees for a community college student. Sometimes it's even more. So what's a student to do?
Even though textbook prices can be pretty outrageous, there are many ways to reduce how much you spend. Being smart about how you shop could save you hundreds of dollars this year.
Follow these ten tips to save on college textbooks.
1. Find your ISBNs. Every book has a unique identifying number called an ISBN that helps you find the exact product you want no matter where you shop. Colleges are supposed to provide ISBN information in course catalogs, so that's the first place to look. You can also find them through the bookstore or by contacting your professor.
2. Shop online. You can find a wide range of booksellers online that may offer steep discounts compared to bricks-and-mortar bookstores. Popular sites for online shopping include Amazon.com, Half.com and Textbooks.com. You can also search multiple sites at once through price comparison services such as CampusBooks.com and BigWords.com. Make sure to look for coupon codes and special sales through sites like RetailMeNot.com, and through retailers' Facebook and Twitter feeds.
3. Rent textbooks. This is probably your best bet if you don't plan to keep the book at the end of the term. Most schools rent books right on campus, and there are also online options including Chegg.com and BookRenter.com. You can also rent textbooks digitally through sites like CourseSmart.com or CengageBrain.com -- just beware of expiration dates and printing limits.
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Posted By: Cheer Leader
Friday, July 25th 2014 at 10:14AM
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