Are There Free Textbooks?

I have a huge 130 lb Great Dane named Casper, brindle with a white nose and toes. He is pretty, friendly, and a great conversation starter since he is the closest thing to a tiger most people get to see. Well, I was putting up some flyers today with him and I lured in a guy asking me if there was any such thing as a free textbook. He was curious to know as I told him of my past struggles with paying for books, and I mentioned the one year I didn't buy any books at all. He asked how that was possible so I decided to post all the possible ways you can get around it on here. So, here is to no bs and not spending a dime! For this to work, however, it takes a lot of work. You have to give more time to your education and networking with students in your classes. Those two things will get you very far.

So, let's look at the resources at hand to get around buying a textbook.

The Library

Not many people are aware of this but your school library, free for attending your rather expensive education, is the most valuable resource at your disposal. It has virtually any subject you need information on as well as your class textbook on shelf to use! Yep, there is a free textbook at your library. It depends on each of your campus libraries as far as the stipulations for borrowing. Mine would only allow a two hour check-out for most books and they couldn't leave the building. The late fees for these books were much higher than the standard rate which tends to deter thievery. So far, it works. 

Network

The most underrated resource though is going to be your fellow classmates. By this, I do not mean steal their books when they aren't being attentive. Also, do not borrow a friends for a few days and keep it indefinitely. Those are prime ways for you to destroy your network and therefore valuable assets you can use along the way for help. No, we cannot have that.

Instead, I would encourage you to form study groups that meet once a week to help each other out. What I mean by this is to offer to help them out with a particular subject that people are finding difficult to understand. Whether that means tutoring or accompanying them to the tutor center* to help you both understand, do it! People want to connect and it is up to you to make it. Start relying on your outgoing nature and willingness to help. And if you don't have those qualities, develop them. They are easy to acquire and will make not only college but work after college so much more lucrative and fulfilling.

So once your connections are made, then ever so kindly ask to borrow their book while you guys are studying or copy some homework questions. Be smart and be professional about it. You want to keep these relationships as you do not know when they will come in handy.

World Wide Web

One of the greatest ways to study for your classes is to use the internet! In fact, I learned some html** to help make this blog and I am now picking up some Java for some additional nifty website making. There are plenty of free learning websites so if you do come across one that tries to charge you, run the other way. RUN! Khan academy is a highly recommended website that is free to use and has everything useful to brain surgeon students and lawyer associates plus some normal stuff in between. Take advantage of the largest collection of information stored online, for free, and get away with just paying close attention to lecture and supplementing it with stuff online. You would be surprised on how easy it would be to maintain a 4.0 on that. In fact, making anything less might start to seem silly after a little while.

So next time you want to take control of your money and education, you can also think about trying this route. It is very much possible, granted a little more work, but your grades, scholarships, and parents will thank you. You might even thank you!

Thank you for reading and feel free to share with friends, family and anyone you think wants to save a few thousand dollars!

*There was a friend who felt very uncomfortable at the tutor center. So, I went along to give some confidence even though I didn't even have the class he needed help with.
**codecademy.com

Campus Edition Textbooks - Do you really need them?

You are determined not to buy from the bookstore. That's it, you've had it paying them their super inflated prices and you start jotting down all of your textbook ISBN's to look up online later. The last textbook catches your eye because on the tag, it says something about being a Custom Edition. Hoping for the better, you copy it down anyway but make sure to grab a picture of the front binding. You leave and get back to your dorm room, but when you search for that last ISBN, you run into some trouble. No one is selling it and all you see are student message boards how to get around this problem. You do not want to go back to pay for a specially overpriced book but you don't know what to do next.

This has definitely happened to me more than one occasion and the fix may actually be a quick one. First, I would look at the front of the textbook to check out who the publisher is and find their latest edition about the subject on their website. They will have up-to-date pictures of both current and past textbooks so do not worry about that. Now, if you took a picture of the front cover or can remember what it looks like, great. All you have to do is match up the front covers. If they are different, this is where I would just go ahead and look over the chapters to see if the subject material is over the same stuff. The most important thing is if the normal edition has what the custom edition has. More often than not, it will have everything plus a few more bonus chapters.

Why? Let me explain. When a school decides, for one reason or another, to have a custom edition made, it means that they will pick and choose the chapters they want from the original edition. They can also decide in what order they're in so that the semester will flow better with their lesson plans. That is it. In other words, it is the custom edition that wouldn't measure up to the original edition. It is the customer's order of what is on the cafe menu. A mere shopping list to an entire grocery store. What's in the custom edition will always be in the original, but not the other way around.

For a many reasons, it would be a good thing to buy the normal edition than the custom and here's why. The original edition may have sections that are not covered in class but may in fact aid in your understanding of the material being gone over. This is especially true of mathematics and science related courses. Those subjects are better understood with the whole picture in mind, which is actually how the majority of courses are taught in college. Also, you may have another course in the following semester that compliments your current course and will use a complimenting custom edition or in fact the original edition. I have noticed that this is common with a heavy english course that offers both a difficult combined or easier split course. They required the same texts at my school however.

While there are many benefits. there are a few drawbacks as well. You should pay attention to sections being covered over in the textbook because they may not match up precisely to the instruction you are being given. Simply put, the table of contents will become your best friend. You should be comfortable in searching through reference material by now so get used to it if you aren't. Next... actually that really is the only drawback. Some people may have issues finding material in the custom text and they may think it's not there. It's there. I have had the pleasure of helping out many fellow students who did what I did and there hasn't been a thing that wasn't found. With that being said, it is advisable to make a few friends in each of your classes for study work and to have a custom edition for comparison. You may find that you like the original a lot better. I sure did.

I hope I cleared up any issues or questions people may have had. If there was something I did not address, please post it below in the comments section and I can answer that for you.

Better yet, post an article idea and I will give a special shout out for the suggestion.

Thank you for reading and feel free to share with friends, family and anyone you think wants to save a few thousand dollars!

Saving on Textbooks - Rent textbooks

As you decide your book options for the semester, you think about the hassle of buying and then selling  your textbook. You've heard how some students get offered $5 for a book they paid $250 for only 4 months earlier, and you'd rather not be one of those examples. Then, you see that the bookstore offers textbook renting for a better deal. The only thing holding you back is the price tag at the bookstore. However, the idea of buying a book for a high price and not being able to sell it is pushing you back to renting from the bookstore.

Well, I am here to say that we can eliminate the bookstore entirely by going online*. There are benefits and drawbacks to this though, which I shall explain. From friends to acquaintances to shocking stories, there have been those to rent a textbook that was in such horrible condition, it was missing entire chapters, sections, assignments, ect. This is only a slight risk in reality and only if you rent used textbooks. Also, most online companies offer a 30-day money back guarantee if you aren't satisfied with the copy you received or are otherwise not satisfied. That is what is so great about private online stores: their customer base must be more than satisfied for their company to do well. Campus stores have a steady flow of customers so they don't feel the repercussion of a few bad reviews. There is always a student around the corner to buy a book at 200% of it's actual value.

I have already highlighted one benefit, one being higher customer service. They want you to come back for the next 7+ semesters to do business. The want you to turn into a repeat customer. That's a good thing. Another bonus from going online and finding your books is that you will save so much money! Just try it if you haven't; the prices are unbelievable.  Some companies will not charge shipping at all, for return as well. One company in particular, Campus Book Rentals, has added a wonderful option to add a textbook that you own into their database and rent it out to make more money on it during school. You will have to visit the site to get the fine details but the reviews from that company are great, if not stellar.

And, none of these stores charge you for highlighting in your textbook! You are actually allowed to deface their property for your learning. At first, this seemed like an odd idea but in the long run, it makes sense. Highlighted sections that students noted advice future book borrowers to take note of those special sections. And, if you are the one breaking in the pages, be sure to do the same because it's not an allowance, its almost a rite of passage. There wasn't a single book I didn't come across that didn't have some section highlighted. It's as nostalgic as finding old carved initials in a study in the far back of the library.

So, save yourself some money and rent a textbook. You might find that you will be in a few thousand dollars less debt when you get out.


If you have any questions about the process, just comment below and I will get back to you immediately.

Thank you for reading and feel free to share with friends, family and anyone you think wants to save a few thousand dollars!



*abebooks.com, bigwords.com, alibri.com, textbookrentals.com, campusbookrentals.com

Saving on Textbooks - Online Editions

On the top of your game in WOW, you decide to take a break to stretch your legs, get your books for class, and possibly score a free red bull from one of those cute chicks that goes around campus handing them off. Out of the dorms, you make your way to the bookstore with a new longboard you got before you moved in. It takes a couple minutes of dodging your slow, unobservant, fellow schoolers but you get to the bookstore, with no red bull. Bummed, you head inside and start looking for your programming class textbook when you see that there isn't one. Instead, you find a slip to bring to the register that looks way underpriced to be a real textbook. But it is, a brand new, never been touched online edition. You are happy with the idea of digitized textbook, thinking about how easy it would be to toggle between classwork and a raid in the realm of Bleeding Hollow*.

This was actually how a buddy found out about online textbooks and I visited him in his dorm room one afternoon and that was what he was doing... toggling. But it was great for him because he a had  nice sized screen and he invested in touch screen technology which made the entire experience more interactively life-like. It had everything that a normal textbook had and even the capabilities of highlighting, adding notes, and even printing out certain pages. They also support mobile platforms so you can access it anywhere if you forget to bring your laptop along with you.

So you are sold on the idea of not having to lug around a 15 lb book around to lectures but you don't know how to get your hands on them. Go to the bookstore? With the added convenience of being on campus, not only can you do better than that through saving money but by not even changing out of those embarrassing pajamas from home and leaving your room. That's right. Online**.

While there are a great many locations to get these online editions, I would have to recommend coursesmart.com or the publisher website catalogs. Coursesmart.com has the added benefit of only specializing in online textbook editions so it may be easier to find all that you are looking for in one place. While you are still dealing with a middleman, because they are so popular and everything is run online, they can make a good amount of profit without having to seriously over-charge like the other guys***. But if you have the time to search for all of the online copies, go to the main publisher website and they should have a catalog for individual student buyers. They will show you the textbook and the type of ways you can acquire your book, either through a cloth (hardback), loose leaf, or online. Online is always the cheapest route and from the publisher, you have eliminated the middleman. 

Congrats! You can now afford a Starbucks treat once a week for the rest of the year with all the money you have saved by now. Think of me when you biting into that pumpkin loaf**** slice of heaven.

If you found this post helpful, please share with friends and comment below. Thanks!

*A real place, I assure you. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/status

**coursesmart.com, chegg.com, publisher websites

***We both know I am talking about bookstores. What can I say, almost as bad as Walmart except Walmart is cheap and bookstores aren't.

****Don't hate the pumpkin flavors, it just happens to send me into bliss with every bite.

Hidden Costs of College - Merchandise

The fall semester has started fresh and you have resisted the urge to buy college academic themed socks, underwear, and hoodies... at least until the first game of the season. All of a sudden, that very over priced giant foam finger is calling your name. "...Jackson...", it whispers. You pull out a spanking new twenty and walk out the bookstore with something that cost less than a penny in china but still means all the world since it has that official collegiate merchandise sticker on it.

I know you have done this before. I have too*. But don't fret, I have found away around the official merchandise problem with a little trick I discovered out in the streets of Spain...

I am fortunate enough to have a father that loves building up his sky miles**. For one lovely winter holiday, the family got to go to Madrid, Spain and then backpack south into Morocco to see some family in Rabat and Tangier. I was hoping we would take a detour off into Barcelona so that I could buy some FC Barcelona merchandise for my colombian friend back home who was in love with the team. But no, we didn't make it. In fact, it was never in the itinerary. Only Real Madrid was, more like real cold Madrid. So as we went shopping through the stores in the city, I found a place that sold official team merchandise. At first, all I could find was the over-priced Real Madrid items and was discouraged. I had a certain Euro limit that I couldn't go over and this pricing was horrible. Then I find the clearance section and all of FC Barcelona merchandise! Over 50% off on all the items, I guess it paid off trying to buy merchandise in the opposing team's city where no one wants to buy and support sworn enemies***. I was able to buy a cap for her and a deck of cards for me. All with official sports seals at a fraction of the cost!

The gist of that story is that so long as you do not buy at the heart of the fandom, you will save money on whatever official stuff you want to buy. First, I would advise going to a school rival's town, like GA Tech is to UGA and U of A is to ASU, and visit official merchandise retailers to find what you are looking for. They may even have an online site so you don't have to go in person****. The only issue is that they may not advertise their clearance items online. So long as you don't buy from the bookstore, you are going to save. The bookstore, in this case, has the largest brand power in that because it is on campus, it means that they only sell officially licensed merchandise, which is not true. I've seen schools sell both official and china-made merchandise, not that the official merchandise isn't china-made either. Somehow, people get confused in that they think the college bookstore is the only place to buy merchandise when that should be the last place to buy. Take a walk right off campus and you will probably find a handful of places selling the same stuff, at nearly 20% - 30% off from bookstore list price.

Save yourself some money for off campus stores so you can buy more merchandise. Don't buy from the bookstore. Never again will I buy socks on campus, and neither should you.

If you found this post helpful, please share with friends and comment below. Thanks!

*I went for the socks on one cold winter morning. I regret the purchase to this day.
**He hates building up miles actually because he is always on required working business trips in places that he never gets to enjoy.
***Spain and Barcelona actually get along real well but there was a war fought between El Salvador and Honduras over soccer matches in 1969. Talk about fandom.
****clc.com has a directory of all retailer by which school's merchandise you would like to buy.

Saving on Textbooks - Loose Leaf (unbound edition)

Going through high school, you have been one of the OCD types where everything was organized, you never lost a thing, and you were one of the few that could see the bottom of your bedroom floor on any given day of the week. When you hit college, you unpack and maintain that regimen in the dorm room... At least on your side of the tape that divides the floor space. Your floor looks like a not so clean shade of grey while the other half has taken up the collage of your roommate's clothing. Heading off to the bookstore to pick up books, you hope nothing crosses that line into your territory. That's all you think about until you see the crazy book prices. But you notice a cheaper pile of saran wrapped loose leaf paper with three hole punches next to those hefty priced books and you decide to grab one.

Estimated savings from bookstore: 25%-40% off bounded list price

This is another great way to save money, but only if you are one of those neat folk that I grew around. I did take this route and decided against it because of my track record with loose leaf. By the end of the semester, I had lost three and a half chapters of the material gone over early in the semester and the final chapter took off somewhere after reading day*.

There were plenty of friends of mine that did buy this edition and did great with it. They also made copies of chapters for friends** who didn't have the money to buy a book on their own. At the end of the semester, the copies were in pristine condition and a few were able to sell it back to the bookstore for a small fraction of what they paid.

People who did not sell it back there decided to sell it online*** and had a much better turnover! And if not there, it was great the everyone tried to network as best they could because they found underclassmen that were willing to pay even more because they didn't have to deal with a middleman.

All in all, its not a bad deal going loose leaf so long as you don't buy from the bookstore but buy online or upperclassman. You can save upwards of 50% off the list price of the bound edition and your savings can go to better things, like cleaning supplies and tape reinforcements for dorm floor territory disputes. It can also go to buying the binder to hold all those pages together. Note that you should try to divide the textbook between two or three nice binders or else it won't last a month of the heavy abuse you will be putting it through****.

If you found this post helpful, please share with friends and comment below. Thanks!

*For those who don't know, reading day is a day off from all studies before final exams start to give everyone at least 24 hours of cramming when you haven't done any studying during the year.
**By friends, I mostly mean me. That was a tough time but I only spent a few dollars at the copy machine getting a paper textbook that would cost over a hundred dollars at the bookstore.
***Mostly Amazon.com as they advertise for these editions more often.
****Making copies in the copy machine for your own personal use. *cough*

Saving on Textbooks - Used Books (hammy down edition)

Browsing around the bookstore, you may find that you really want the same book that everyone else has. Stick in with the crowd, in a matter of words. And as you browse around, you find out that some students are buying out used books quicker than the new volumes. You see the section of where one of your class books are supposed to be, but a girl just reached past you and grabbed the last used copy. Or so it seems. The price is almost 30% cheaper than the new book listing price. Bummed, you grab one of the new copies and head to the register, counting how many weeks it is going to save up for that new first person shooter now.

So here is the next money saving tip that bookstores have tried to monopolize:
Sell used books

What a bookstore will do is sell a new book for let's say $200. At the end of the semester, they will try to buy back that book for $20-$35. Then the following spring semester, sell it as a used book for $80-$110. Total sales? $255-$290

And it still doesn't end when that second owner decides to sell it back. So long as it is in decent condition, that book can be resold back to students through the bookstore with sky-rocketing profit margins. It is quite an ingenious, granted a sad reality for students.

So how would students cut out the money mongering bookstore?
Easy. Go online.*

You can get really lucky and only pay 30% of the listing price of a new book, possibly even less. Some of the sites come with money-back guarantees in-case you do not want your scribbled-on textbook** and you have the option to list your book back on the site for your asking price. The drawback is that you can't charge too much because you are competing with students across the country who are doing the same thing. One student at UGA is even organizing a local book trade/sale to take out the bookstore as a middle man***.

The most important thing is to try not to get ripped off by the school as best you can. Happy hunting!

If you found this post helpful, please share with friends and comment below. Thanks!

*Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Chegg.com
**I haven't had scribble but I did have answers to all the math questions once. It was great for studying!
***http://onlineathens.com/stories/021210/blu_561925699.shtml

Saving on Textbooks - International Edition (paperback editions)

It's my first year of college and I feel excited to get out of the house for once. To be FREE! I walk around campus with my parents, get my free merch*, and pick the keys to my dorm room. My mom started crying a little and I try to get her out before she makes too much of scene around my roommates. So not cool. She sits in the car while my dad and I go into the campus bookstore and buy textbooks. As we look around, someone approaches us about a bundle offer where they sort our order for us. A few minutes later, we have a total cost of over $400.

And so marks the beginning of the college struggle...

If you go through the bookstore, you are going to have the same issues. That how it is. But what they didn't tell you is that there is a book exactly written like the books in that bundle offer, except almost a hundred dollars cheaper. It is called the "International Edition". It is the closest thing you can get to the actual book while still having your own while saving the most money.

Where's the catch?

Publishers do not sell it to American retailers.

The only way a bookseller can acquire these editions is if they sell to other countries or they are based from another country. The concept is similar to how many authors today sell their books first on hardback and then months later offer a cheaper paperback version, which is what the International Edition of a textbook is. They change the cover a little to make the hardback** version more appealing.

So how does the average person get their hands on them for the reduced price?

Start by getting the ISBN numbers off the back of your textbook or wherever you can find you required class textbooks. Type this online and pull up the title, author, and edition number. Next, add "international edition" on the backend of this search and you can find a number of suppliers***.

There are even cheaper ways to buy textbooks but through this way, you have the benefit of buying a new**** book in the latest edition required by the faculty at your school. Through is route, you are still saving anywhere from 50% - 85% of the bookstore listing price.

Happy hunting and if you run into trouble, post a comment with the ISBN, either 10 or 13 digit, and I can try to find an online supplier for you!

If you found this post helpful, please share with friends and comment below. Thanks!

*It isn't so free when you look at the college bills.
**This is called cloth in by textbook publishers in their catalogs.
***bookfinder.com, abebooks.com, alibris.com are among the good ones.
****I had a short lived phase of only buying new books and this satisfied it for a while.

Hidden Costs of College - Bookstore Textbooks

Some say you don't know poor unless you have been to college. It's true. I've driven down the road in my own college town and seen med students pan-handling at intersections right off freeway exits. Kids in their young twenties. Homeless. Hungry. Until the next semester starts and they get their scholarships that pay for everything, they represent a college town's poorest.

Well, let me let you in on a little secret. This doesn't have to be the case anymore. I can help you save money while you are going to college. And, you might save hundreds, if not thousands on a four year degree. Even more if you want to get your Masters or a PhD. What's the catch? No catch. I've been there, paying out of pocket for tuition and didn't have any money left for books. Nada. Zilch. I went one year without any books at all. How I managed an average 4.0 in those two semesters is beyond me. I definitely knew I was lucky though.

Now, I want to end all that. In my money saving search, I have found out that the number one money mongering entity inside of a university or college is their bookstore. Here are some shocking facts:

UGA - ranked #63* in the Nation
Bookstore revenue in 2010 - $1,231,831**

Harvard - ranked #1* in the Nation
MIT - ranked #6* in the Nation
Bookstore (TheCoop)*** revenue in 2012 - $44,977,293****

Follett - Private Corporation that runs 800 college bookstores
Total revenue each year - $2.7 billion*****

This is insane! And this doesn't cover every school bookstore either, because a lot more universities do not even make their bookstore sales report available to the public. If everyone knew how much money was being made in bookstore alone, there would be a lot more unrest among students and their respected paying parents. Remember, this is the money made by the colleges without the tuition costs and fees thrown in.

So how would a student get around these unnecessary textbook costs? By a variety of buying options! Here's a list of some that I will touch up on specifically in other posts:

International Editions 
Loose-leaf Editions
Used Editions
Online Editions
Older Editions
Rent textbooks
Local Bookstore
Share with a classmate

I've tried all of these options and I have gone over the benefits and pitfalls with each. The links will direct you to the related post or you can find them on the right side of the screen starting with a label "Saving on Textbooks".

Your best bet would be to try to cut out the bookstore as best you can from the mix because that is the location where you will end up spending the most. Convenience will be the greatest enemy in school. In my freshman year, after totaling everything in my cart online, it came up to over $400. I did myself a favor back then and spent less than half that by being a little creative in my shopping habits. Now I would like to pay it forward and share some of my best tricks and ideas with you.

If you found this post helpful, please share with friends and comment below. Thanks!

*According to USNews
**http://www.busfin.uga.edu/amr_10/aux_admin/bookstore.pdf
***This store supplies textbooks and merchandise to both MIT and Harvard in Mass.
****http://store.thecoop.com/coopstore/estore_financialresults.jsp *****http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrandall/2010/08/19/the-future-of-the-college-bookstore/