5 WAYS TO SAVE MONEY ON COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS

5 WAYS TO SAVE MONEY ON COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS

From Rentals to Book Stores

You may have gotten used to the number of zeros on the college tuition bill, but college textbook bills, which can run $900 or more a year, always take parents by surprise. It doesn't have to be that way. Here are five ways to shave some bucks off your child's textbook bill.

l.Rent Books. Textbook rental companies such as Chegg.com and Book Renter offer an intriguing deal. Order the books you need online. At quarter's end, simple mail them back in a prepaid package, Nexflix-style. (And yes, it's OK to dog ear pages and highlight passages. Just use a light touch.) A McGraw Hill college level biology book that lists for $157 retail could be rented from Chegg and BookRenter for $39-$54 a quarter.

2.Buy Used. Campus bookstores usually carried some used textbooks, but the real deals are found online via Bookfinder.com, eBay's Half.com, Campus Books, eCampus and similar companies. Used copes of that $157 biology book ranged from $59 to $122, plus shipping. (Hint: it's vastly easier to find the right book if you have the ISBN, the publisher's indentifier number. Otherwise, you'll need the title, author, publisher and edition number).
3.Borrow the Book. If your child moves quickly enough, he may be able to check out free textbooks from the campus library. Other good sources for borrowed textbooks include roommates, dorm buddies, and Facebook friends who took the same course last year. Borrow the book or negotiate a better-than-online price.

4.Share the Book. Have your child share a copy of the book with his roommate, girlfriend or trusted members of his study group. Upside? The cost is halved. Downside? Less reliable access to the book.

5.Recycle an Older Edition. Professors typically list the most recent edition of a book on the syllabus, but unless the book's subject covers cutting-edge, soon-rendered obsolete material, it's fine to use an older edition of the book. Upside? You'll find better deals on older books. Downside? Pages 120-124 are now on pages 124-127, and doing specific problems on a specific page may be problematic. Your child may need to doublecheck assignments with a classmate who has the current edition.
Http://youngadults.about.com/od/finances/a/textbook.htm