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Textbook Price Comparisons

Pick the best college textbooks

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These days, the average student spends over $1400 per year on textbooks, that is a large amount of money for something that you are more than likely only going to use for a semester or maybe a full year.  These days there are many options for obtaining your college textbooks.  You could stick with the traditional and buy them new or your could buy second hand, you can also rent textbooks and don’t forget there are also eBook editions of most books these days.   Deciding which is the best option for you can be tricky, we’ve given you a bit of a run down so that your can pick the best college textbooks for you.

Students usually receive their list of textbooks to be used during the semester in the first week of semester or orientation week. Once you have your textbook list, weigh up your options, considering these factors:

  1. Will I need this textbook for more than 1 semester?
  2. Do I want to write notes in the textbook?
  3. What will the re-sale value of the textbook be?
  4. Will I be able to keep the textbook in good condition?
These questions will help you to answer whether you should, buy new, used or rent your textbooks.  Now that you’ve weighed up whether you need to buy new, used or rent your textbooks, you can start looking for them.  You may decide to buy some and rent the rest.
  1. Use a comparison site such as Rentscouter.com to give you a good idea of what the book is worth vs renting it.  You can also use our site to see how much you would get for selling your textbooks.  So you can see how much money you might get back in the end and factor this into your decision.
  2. Consider getting your book in E-Book format. E-books are digital textbooks that have become popular nowadays since it is more convenient to carry from one place to another.
  3. You may also rent textbooks. Renting textbooks is great for those books that you only need for a short time, as you can rent for terms of 1 month, 3 months or a full semester.
  4. Another traditional acquisition is through borrowing your college textbooks from your school library. You’re only limited since those books are due for return.

By doing your research you can save yourself a lot of money, you don’t always need to buy new textbooks, but make sure that you are getting the correct edition if you are purchasing used textbooks as this could impact on the information contained in the book.