College books so expensice $200+

[tarazan]

Hi,

where do you buy your university books from !!! i usually buy them from Amazon !

this semester i need 5 books. 2 of them are over $200 !!! :eek: ( finance books)

these books are new editions, hard to find them used .

is there any place where i can look to reduce the damage ?!! :confused:

thanks

[PlateCaptain]

Look for older editions - publishers often make minor changes to the books, like rearranging a few chapters, and then call it a new edition so they can sell more new copies. I've only ever had one problem doing this, and all I had to do was borrow someone else's book to read one chapter. And I saved at least 50% on the book, so it was worth it.

Some colleges have their own book exchanges where students sell their old books to other students - this can also be a great place to sell your books when you're done with them, because you can often get away with selling the books for a slightly higher rate on the exchange than on sites like Amazon.

Sometimes you can just check them out from your school's library, too, or a library that your school partners with.

[PhoenixFP]

Check out sites like half.com and amazon.com, and compare the prices at your university with those online. While most of the time you will get a better deal, some books just can't be found for less than your university.

Also, as said above, older versions of the book can often help (and can be 50% or more less than the newest version, because no one needs it). I would just contact your professors and see if that would work out. For something like finance, I can't really see too much changing, but maybe I'm wrong. If there is an older version out there, ask your professor about it and if they say it will work, get it instead.

[lordoffire]

...check on feebay, found some really cheap ones that were in pretty good shape....

[nucci]

Rent them!
Chegg.com

[SophiaM]

get together with your friends and share one book. why on each does everyone need his or her own paper book?

(you can cut the binding off and scan the books into searchable documents too. Then you guys can ___ them with each other and ___ them.)

(also, some text books are online shared via torrents.[1])


[1] "I am referring to text books under GNU FDL"

[PhoenixFP]

Rent them!
Chegg.com
For some textbooks, yes, that's a good idea. Some classes use regular reading books as textbooks though, which can be easier to buy than rent- and cheaper.

For classes like Finance, that are probably in that person's major, renting textbooks might not be a good idea- you're more inclined to want to keep the books of your major than those of the liberal studies classes everyone's required to take.