GOOD NEWS, STUDENTS: Lawmakers have finally heard your griping about high textbook costs and done something about it. A new law, effective in July, requires colleges to list required course materials, including retail prices and ISBN numbers, for each class on their online course schedule. Now, instead of scrambling to find deals on books before classes begin, you have plenty of time to shop around.
And as college bookstores and online vendors compete for your business, they’re offering more options besides new and used textbooks. For example, if you don’t want to hold on to your textbook after the course ends, you can rent it for the entire semester and return the book by a predetermined due date, often with free shipping. A textbook that costs $100 new and $75 used might be as little as $45 as a rental.
Another new option is the e-book -- that is, the print version converted into an electronic format that you can read on your computer. You may download and keep this version of the text after the course is over. That textbook that cost $100 new will probably be $50 to $65 in digital form from your campus bookstore, and it may cost even less from an online retailer.
Start close to home
Because the transition is still under way, not all campus bookstores are offering all textbooks in cost-saving formats. We suggest looking into your campus offerings and using these prices as a baseline to begin your search online.
Barnes &
Follett campus bookstores also offer all textbook formats and have released MyScribe -- a free software program that allows you to interact with your electronic textbook. And if you want to get even more collaborative, Follett’s CaféScribe enables you to subscribe to other students’ notes or join a study group to work on understanding the material together.
Search comparison sites
We found comparison Web sites -- such as CampusBooks.com, Bigwords.com and AllBookstores.com -- to be the best places to start your search for a deal. When buying multiple textbooks, these sites also allow you to compare the total cost of your purchase if you were to buy from one vendor -- which could save you shipping costs.
Common partners of comparison sites include Amazon, Half.com, AbeBooks, Barnes & Noble and many others. You need to keep in mind, however, how long it will take for the book to ship and what the site’s return policy is if you decide to drop the class because you won’t have the convenience of working with your campus bookstore.
To guarantee you’re ordering the correct edition of the text, be sure to use its ISBN number. Type in the ISBN at CampusBooks.com, and the site displays a summary of the lowest prices in each category, including international edition, rental, used, e-book and new. (Watch out for international editions, though, because publishers do not authorize the sale or distribution of such editions in the U.S. and Canada.)
CampusBooks.com, Bigwords.com and AllBookstores.com all list the textbook seller, price and shipping cost and redirect you to the seller’s site when you decide to buy. The prices that turn up on all of these sites are comparable, but we found that CampusBooks.com is the easiest site to navigate and comprehend. Both Bigwords.com and CampusBooks.com help you sell your books back either to the retailer or to another retailer at the end of the semester for even more savings.
Compare rentals
If you know you want to rent your textbook, check out CampusBookRentals.com, which consistently came up with the lowest rental prices on comparison sites. For a few dollars more, you can rent from Chegg.com, and they will also plant a tree for you. Both sites provide you with free rental-return shipping.
When renting a textbook, make sure the due date falls after finals. Rental sites allow you to choose semester, quarter or summer/60-day rentals, but they’ll charge you more if you miss the deadline. Renting closer to the start of the semester helps to guarantee you won’t need extra time to return the book, but be sure the book will be shipped to you in time for the first day of class.
Check out e-books
We found the site with the cheapest e-books to be AbeBooks.com. And these electronic versions of your textbooks are sometimes accompanied by additional features, such as a Test Bank with practice questions that you can download to your PC or Mac.
Cost comparison
We did a search for the primary textbook used in CHEM 110, a common freshman class at Penn State University.
Chemistry: The Central Science (11th edition)
At the Penn State University Bookstore (Barnes &
New: $166.05
Used: $124.55 (if available)
Rental: not offered
Digital: $116.23
The best prices we found in each category:
New: $75.50 plus $3.99 shipping (redirected to
Used: $77.95 plus $3.65 shipping (redirected to AbeBooks.com from CampusBooks.com)
Rental (for a 130-day semester): $53.05 (free shipping, from CampusBookRentals.com)
bDigital: $19.99 (no shipping, from AbeBooks.com)
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