COLUMN: When it comes to buying textbooks, take the time to research
I've been in college for, counting this new semester, three and a half years.
Before coming to Central Michigan University, I was a student at Lansing Community College. During my first semester of college, I had enough financial aid at my disposal that I didn't really need to worry about the ridiculous textbook prices. Granted, I still griped and grumbled as I slogged toward the purchase counter with books in hand.
The same trend of having enough financial aid to get by continued for the majority of my time at LCC.
LCC would try, sometimes successfully, other times not, to give me at least half of my money back at the end of the semester.
Although this was a nice incentive that they seemed to recognize and empathize with students on the topic of book prices, this didn't stop me from realizing the prices of textbooks would only continue to go up and, at some point, I knew I would run out of precious financial aid.
Only toward the end of my time at LCC did I learn about book rental services such as Chegg.com and Half.com. Even my favorite seller of all of my favorite music biographies, Amazon.com, jumped into the book-renting fray.
At the beginning of my first semester at CMU, I wanted to try my luck at buying my books at the CMU bookstore, hoping the buyback at semester's end would be worth buying them five months prior. I only had 12 credits for the fall semester; a geology class, two journalism classes and a political science class.
I ended up spending about $350 on my books this past semester. This isn't as horrifically high an amount some people I've heard spent, but I knew I would be spending a decent amount, at least more than I would have liked.
I ended up buying one of my books online for $.40 only to find out it was the wrong edition, then spending close to $100 for the correct book. Of course, I only opened the book about 10 times all semester. Another one of my books, for a geology class, I didn't even crack open once. To add insult to injury, I got a grand total of $2 for one of my book buybacks.
Do the best you can to rent your textbooks or at least find used editions online.
As I'm writing this, there's a wall-to-wall line at the bookstore of people that are most likely begrudgingly buying a $200 book that they'll probably open 10 times all semester.
This semester, I have another 12-credit class load; three journalism classes and a nutrition class. The latter class has a new textbook and packet bundle for almost $200. I knew I wasn't going to buy that. So, I hunted online and found the textbook for $50 used and bought the packet separately for $9; definitely a better deal.
I rented all of my books from Chegg.com, and according to my account there, I've saved $489.94.
You can save that much money, or more, if the time is simply taken to research.
