Starting your college career is a series of financial challenges. Even those who have scrimped and saved to pay for tuition and attend our excellent and relatively affordable state schools find that the tuition is just a starting point. Room and board are big tickets items but they are matched with a series of fees that quickly add up. Parking permits, various rentals such as dorm fridges or loft beds add to the tab. The biggest shock, however, often comes with the first trip to the campus bookstore with your textbook list in hand. You have options let's explore them. We'll use the textbook for George Mason's Government 319, Modern Principles of Economics by Cowen to compare options.
The on-campus bookstore (a branch of the Barnes & Noble College Stores) gives the price of new copy of the text as $198.95. If a used copy is available it can be gotten for $149.00. Both of those prices are significantly less expensive than the suggested list price of $211.60.
Let's go to the internet and see if we can find it cheaper. Grab the ISBN from the Mason bookstore link. An ISBN (International Standard Book Number, the 13 digit ISBN might be referred to as an EAN) is a unique identifier to the exact edition of a title. If you search by title or author only you may not get the same book that you need for your class. You can search the ISBN in Google and go through the results for the best price or you can use a shopping tool such as Google or Bing Shopping to find prices ranging from $85 and up. Of course, you need to read the fine print. Check shipping costs and times, return options and buy-back policies. And check with friends or more experienced students to see if they suggest a particular store.
Some of the textbook stores such as Chegg.com and eTextbooks also allow you to rent copies with prices based on the amount of time you hold onto the texts (month, semester, year). With rentals you do need to consider the potential resale value at the end of the term. Most textbook stores (in person and online) will have a buy back period so that they can refresh their stock of used copies. Of course, if a new edition is coming out you might be out of luck if you rely on that option.
A new option for students is ebook texts. Imagine loading your texts onto your laptop, e-reader, tablet or even your phone. Amazon announced this month that they are starting their own Kindle textbook rental program. Think of not having to worry about lugging around a ten pound book, or several ten pound books. About having the texts available on the device you are using already to write papers or complete assignments or not having to worry about textbooks being lost or stolen. The convenience of being able to use the search functions, book marks and in the case of BN.com's program, their NookStudy software which has additional features to help you organize your texts and assignments.
Not all textbooks are available as e-books, and not all texts on e-books are readable on e-readers, tablets or phones. For example, the text we are using as an example is available as a nookStudy rental version for $87.99 but not available from Kindle. The nookStudy ebooks are only available for Windows of Mac OS. The Kindle books from Amazon can be used on any device that can install the free Kindle app and remember your place in the text wherever you log into it.
Textbooks as ebooks makes a lot of sense to save money for students. More and more will become available in the coming semesters.
It is always good advice to access the class syllabus for your courses if possible to see if the text is suggested or required. And if you are planning on going the e-book route, you can wait until the first day of class and see what your professor recommends. If the text is necessary, you can maybe even download it while you are in class.
Of course, you may still want the physical book to have in your own personal research library. And speaking of libraries, you may be able to find the texts you need for class available in your college libray, maybe even as an e-book. This is the ultimate cost saving measure.
