How to Beat the System when Purchasing College Textbooks

One of the greatest scams run in this country is the sale of college textbooks. Many students spend $900 a year or better so that they can buy oversized textbooks - which they are only actually using a small portion of. Even worse, text books are listed as required for a class and then the teacher never actually refers to that book. Not all students return books that haven't been cracked open because they were too lazy to read the material. Some of them return books because there was never any need for them in the first place.

Some of the reasons given for the astronomically high prices of college text books are that they have small press runs, and that some textbooks are expensive to produce - math and science texts - because they require frequent revisions. This particular excuse seems a bit flimsy. How does math change? Aren't there carved-in-stone rules to math? And if science needs to be changed, it doesn't seem as if it was very good science in the first place, does it?

Publishers are trying to respond to the need for lower-cost text books by producing some in black and white rather than color, and offering split texts - half now, half later - for some courses.

Many students are taking matters into their own hands by doing some creative shopping. The internet has been a blessing for many college students. Craig's List, eBay and Amazon are good sources for used - and therefore cheaper - text books. Books can then be resold on Craig's list to help recoup some of the expense - and also help another student with the cost of their own books.

Some rules to follow to save on text books are to buy used books whenever possible, understand the store's refund policy - campus bookstore's refund policies are notoriously poor - don't write in a book until you are certain that you are going to keep it, and save your receipts in case you want to drop a course. Other ways to save are to share a book with a fellow student, look for book exchanges, and even try the public library.