College Tips: 5 Alternatives To Buying Brand New Textbooks

College students have important choices to make at the beginning of semesters. To buy or not to buy textbooks? That's the question. And it shouldn't be. A survey has found that 7 out of 10 students decide not to buy textbooks altogether because of cost. The college textbook market is currently one-sided and broken. College professors come in on the first day of class and require students to buy textbooks that they've chosen, often times, disregarding the price tag attached to it. College students typically take on extra debt buying these books, adding to the already difficult financial situation students are in with college tuition being at an all-time high. In fact, textbook publishers who establish textbook prices have increased their pricing 186% since 1986! That's almost double the price!


Students typically have limited resources and many can't afford to pay about $900 per year on textbooks. There are many ways however that students can circumvent the textbook headache and start spending in more clever manners to limit textbook expenses. Here's an infographic by Online Education entitled "The College Textbook Shakedown" that lists those ways. See below: