$115 For a math 50 text book!!

[nbs2]

hey come on now, your in law school, before you know it your going to be making the BIG $$$ !!!

That's what I thought. Graduated, licensed, and still temping for peanuts.

Anyway, you may want to try your hand at bigwords.com. The nice thing there is that it compiles searches from several sites, saving you some time. I guess they get a kickback from the vendors (half.com, bn, amazon, etc).

Another option - look in the school library for your books - you'll get the occasional textbook that you can use. But, check as soon as the book list is available - you want to be the first to the library (unless it is on the reference shelf).

Whereever you buy you books, check to see what the campus buyback rules are. I think my college instituted a sticker program since they paid 60% of cover price for buybacks, since some folks were actually making a profit on their books and glutting the schools official textbook pipeline.

 

[it5five]

The worst thing is when the professor of a certain class writes the book for his class and forces all the students to buy his book and then charges outrageous prices.

I'm not buying the book for my Beatles class because of that. The guy teaches an Elvis class, and a Beatles class, so his textbook is just about both of them. It's like $70 dollars. It's an online class, so if I need to find answers to any questions, I'm sure it won't be hard finding information about the Beatles online.

 

[Leareth]

I used to buy textbooks, now I very rarely do.

I ask instructors if they have extra copies - especially when they are the author, usually they do and are willing to give it out right or lend for the term.

I borrow from my school libraries - semester loans rock.

Borrow other school libraries - see above comment

Find eBook online. < favorite method.

Photocopy instructors copy or class mate...

Request instructors copy for my use when TA'ing a class < yes usually you have to buy them yourself but I refuse to.

 

[OutThere]

I spent $30 on a stapled together compilation of short stories for class last year.

My own damn fault though...I could have made someone lend me theirs and made photocopies.

All in all freshman year set me back about $800 in textbooks, but I sold a bunch (not to the school store which was offering about $5/book) online and made back about $300.