As the new school year is beginning, you will hear a lot of students complaining about the price of textbooks. With tuition prices skyrocketing every year, saving money on textbooks is the least you can do for your wallet. The average spent at the university book store is around $500 a semester. Most freshman at the University of Northern Iowa buy all their books from the bookstore without knowing all the options. From firsthand experience, let me tell you there are many other options that are a lot cheaper on your budget.
Nowadays bookstores give you multiple options for purchasing books. You can buy new, buy used, or rent. The new book price is going to be ridiculously high and when you go to sell your textbooks back at the end of the semester you will get a fourth of the money you spent back, if you're lucky. Buying old is a slightly better option, but still going to screw you over if you want a little extra cash at the end of the semester when returning your books. Recently the book store started a rental option. This option can actually be useful if you're taking a required liberal arts class that you won't want to keep the book at the end of the semester. Depending on the amount you can get these books for online and the shipping price, this could be a better option. However, the majority of upperclass college students will agree that purchasing your books online is the easiest and cheapest way.
There are a lot of different websites you can use to get cheap textbooks. Of course Amazon is going to be a main website for online books. You can buy them used or new through Amazon and it's going to cost you a whole lot less. A great aspect about using Amazon is that they have an Amazon Student program. It's free to sign up for college students and allows you six months of FREE two-day shipping on most college textbooks. Another great website is chegg.com. The Chegg website allows you to rent textbooks and you can purchase them at the end of the semester if you like or you can just print out the shipping labels off the website and return them back. Most colleges have their own website for buying and selling books among students. At the University of Northern Iowa the website is panthertextbooks.com. This website allows you to meet up with students on campus and buy books with cash or check. These books are generally cheaper than the bookstore, but the website won't have as much variety as other online textbook sellers. These are just a few options for online textbooks and there are a lot more you can find on the internet.
Bottom line: Books are expensive. Buy online and save big.
