It is back to school time and for lots of young adults it is time to go back to college.  College can be expensive!  I want to help you save money on textbooks, possibly hundreds of dollars, by sharing some quick tips on how to buy textbooks for less.  These tips come from years of experience with our college book fund at church and from my sister who is a college instructor.  I have written about this topic before, but today’s posts includes some updates and extra information.

Over the years, I have seen many receipts for books from college students who paid full price at the campus bookstore.  There are huge savings out there for just about 10 minutes worth of extra work.  Here are my four easy steps that will probably save the average student at least 50% on textbooks.  (There is a PDF of these tips at the bottom of the page.  Print it out and take it with you.)

Step 1 – DO NOT buy your textbooks (even used ones) at the on-campus bookstore.  Shop around first! (Special exception: There will occasionally be a special package of materials or a collection of ‘copies’ your professor has put together.)

Step 2 – Using your course syllabus, or by going to the bookstore, get the ISBN number of the textbook you need for class.  Make sure you note the title of the book, the edition number and the author if there is one.  You might even consider taking a photo of the book with your phone.

Step 3 – Using the information you have gathered, explore options on the internet.

Chegg.com – Check for your book on www.chegg.com.  Search for your book by ISBN, or author and title.  Make sure to double-check that you have the correct edition.  Chegg offers books for rent at significant savings.  I kept very few textbooks from college, so renting is a great option!    Prices will probably be 50% less than the bookstore.  Many times renting a book costs $20 or $30 while purchasing the book might cost $150+.  You can highlight, make notes, etc. in rented books.  If the textbook has a CD-Rom or lab code, this might not be included.  (More info about this later in the post.)

Amazon.com – Amazon offers a free Prime account to students with a .edu email address.  The Prime account gets you free 2-day shipping on any item, and $3.99
per item next day shipping.  Go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info
to sign up.  (Amazon is currently offering a $10 per referral credit for friends that you get to sign up for Prime via email or social media.)  From there, simply type in the numerical part of the ISBN number to search for your text book.  I recommend staying away from the low ball offers that you see in the results and buying only from Amazon, so you can return the book for free if needed.

On Campus Bookstore – Many bookstores on college campuses are having to change their pricing structure to stay competitive with Chegg and Amazon.  At time of publication, many Follett owned stores have started renting textbooks too.  Some campus bookstores do not advertise that they rent books.  Ask a staff member if your textbook is available for rental.  After getting prices from Chegg and Amazon, compare them with the bookstore pricing.

Quick tip: In my previous post on textbook savings a recent college graduate said she had great success with directtextbook.com, a site that compares textbook pricing across various sites.

Step 4 – Bask in the glory of the money you have saved!

Here are two real world examples.  The first is from a college freshman that I helped and the other is from the textbooks my sister purchased for her PhD program…

Example 1 – First semester books, college freshman

Psychology – Bookstore $152.75 – Chegg.com rental $45.99  (Savings of $106.76)
Master Reader – Bookstore $44.25 – Chegg.com rental $13.99 (Savings of $30.26)
NIV Study Bible – Bookstore $49.99 – Amazon.com $29.40 (Savings of $20.59)
Hailey’s Handbook – Bookstore $24.99 – Amazon.com $12.82 (Savings $12.17)
NT Survey – Bookstore $35.00 – Amazon.com $22.65 (Savings $12.36)

Bookstore Total – $306.98  –  Amazon/Chegg Total – $124.84 (60% savings!)

(Note: There is only one typical textbook in this example, yet you can see how large the savings is on this one text alone. Typical savings for a student would be even greater.)

Example 2 – PhD Student

Text A – Bookstore $47.50 – Rental from bookstore $19.25 (Savings $28.25)
Text B – Bookstore $177.00 – Chegg.com rental $56.50 (Savings $120.50)

Bookstore total – $224.50   –   Rental total – $148.75 (66% savings!) 

What about CDs and lab codes?  Many textbooks have additional material on a CD-Rom or an access code for online labs with further exercises.  Most used books will not have the disc or an active code.  Here are some options for dealing with this circumstance.  1) Ask the professor if the CD-Rom and lab code will be needed.  Sometimes they don’t make use of these extra materials.  2) Sometimes these materials can be purchased separately.  Look for a “Frequently Ordered Together” link on the Chegg textbook page or contact the publisher of the book about ordering the extra material.  Many times the cost will be $40 or $50 which is still a huge savings over buying a new book.

As promised, here is a printable PDF that you can print off or email to a college student.  I hope you enjoy saving money on college textbooks!  DadisLearning.com Textbook Savings

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