Books can be incredibly expensive, especially for college students who are putting all of their time into education and who do not have time for a job on the side. Dropping four hundred dollars or more, per semester, can be daunting and sometimes impossible. However, colleges and universities refuse to supply books along with the cost of the courses, so what can you do? Below are a few creative ways to save.
Buy the PDF Versions
The publishing world is changing. These days, you can choose to buy many books in PDF form and then read them on your tablet, your smartphone or your computer, rather than buying paperback copies. Since the cost of printing a paperback book or a hardcover book is far higher than the cost of assembling a PDF – which can then be resold many times over – the PDF versions usually cost much less. You might be able to get a $100 book for under $10. If you do this with even half of your books, you are going to save.
Get Science Books Directly from Former Students
If you need science books, you can often get them right from the students who took the class before you. They will need new books for their next classes since they will be taking different subjects, so they will want to get rid of the ones that they have and get some money to buy the new ones. They will be happy to sell to you, rather than selling the books back to the school, because it cuts out the middleman and makes it a good deal from both sides. Even if you pay less than what it would have cost to buy a book from the school, you will still be giving them more than they would have gotten while selling the book back to the bookstore. It is a win-win situation.
Share a Book with Another Student
If you have friends who are taking the same classes as you, but they have the classes at different times, you should consider sharing the book. You will still get a great education because you will have the tools that you need, but you will not have to pay nearly as much. If you split the cost of books in half this way, you can really save a lot, though you may have to study together when exams come around.
Buy Your Books Late
Some professors will assign books for the course and then never use them. You can often figure out if this is going to happen in the first week or so. They will choose to give you an education based around presentations and lectures, but they may have assigned the book just because they felt like they had to give you something. You should go to your first week of classes without any books, figure out which classes you really need them for, and then only buy those ones at the bookstore. This keeps you from throwing away money on a book you would never open anyway.
Increasing Your Savings
If you use all four of these tricks at the same time, you can drastically cut back on what you pay each semester. Even if you only saved $100 each semester, you will be saving $800 by the time that you graduate. If it takes you more than four years to get your degree, or if you are able to save around $200 per semester, your savings will increase. Take these steps as soon as you can to give yourself financial freedom while you get your education.
Author Bio
Today’s guest article comes from Ryan Ayers. He is a writer who creates informative articles in relation to education. In this article, he offer advice for students buying books and aims to encourage further study with an OU Online Civil Engineering Master’s Degree.