Financial Student Aid
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| | Save Money on College Books Over the course of a four-year undergraduate college education, many students spend in excess of $5,000 on books required for courses and special projects. But with good advance planning and attention to the information provided in Stephen Windwalker's 'Buying Books Online: Finding Bargains and Saving Money with Booksense Stores, Amazon Marketplace, and Other Online Sites', a student can reduce this by half or more. Whether the savings ends up paying the rent, buying clothes or beer, reducing tuition loans, or paying for a few extra trips home or getting returned to the parents - hey, it's possible, isn't it? - two or three thousand dollars can go a long way. For students in graduate school, the financial stakes can be much higher.This book will help you focus on the steps you can take, if you are an undergraduate or graduate student, to maximize your savings without missing a beat academically. The same principles apply, of course, for law school, medical school, or other professional programs. To begin with, let's talk about the college bookstore at your college or university. Regardless of what you may hear or read from your professors, fellow students, or the ads that the college bookstore may place in your college newspaper, you have absolutely no obligation to buy anything there. Maybe it's nice that the college store sells notebooks (and all kinds of other paraphernalia) with your college logo on them, but buying books from the store is not an act of school spirit. You may have an instructor suggesting that you need to buy your books there because they did him a favor by ordering enough copies for the whole class on short notice, and he doesn't want them to be left holding the bag on his account. I believe the correct response here is either "As if!" or "Whatever," but more likely these responses are so ten years ago that I should just move on and say that it does not work that way. The bookstore can return the unsold books for full credit without any penalty. Most college bookstores have developed their business practices based on their belief that they hold an on-campus monopoly, but if your college bookstore does not provide the combination of service, pricing, and benefits to deserve your patronage, you now have the power and the choice to act autonomously and get the best service, pricing, and benefits you can find online.
Your only responsibilities in buying books for your courses are to get the right editions, in useful condition, in plenty of time for you to use them for your classes, and to save money if you can on the sometimes exorbitant costs of textbooks. Let's look at several steps you can take to make this work well for you. - Whenever possible, get a course syllabus a few months ahead of the time when you will be taking the course. You'll find that such information is often available from the department office or on the college's website. If it is not available there, it may be worth sending an email message to the course's professor. In the process, a conversation or email exchange to verify that no changes are anticipated in the syllabus between now and the start of the semester is a prudent safeguard against wasting your precious bookbuying dollars.
- Try to place your orders to meet your book needs as far in advance as possible. If you wait until the last minute and request "expedited" shipping to get your books on time, you will pay an expensive premium for this kind of upgrade, usually to USPS Priority Mail or USPS 1st Class Mail. Such a premium can quickly erode the savings you could experience by finding a reasonably priced copy. Priority Mail usually takes 2 to 4 days, 1st Class mail 3 to 6 days, and the most frequent non-expedited or "standard" option of USPS Media Mail usually takes 4 to 14 days. Somewhat less frequently, sellers may prefer to use other carriers such as UPS or Fedex. (For a more detailed presentation and comparison of USPS shipping times, an interesting table has been archived at the Online Book Buyer's Resource Center).
- Understand, before placing your order for a book, exactly what you can reasonably expect in terms of delivery time. Be sure to read the bookseller's description of the book and of his shipping practices, take a look at the calendar, and verify that it all adds up to ensuring that the book will be in your hands when you need it with time to spare.
- Pay careful attention to what your syllabus says about "edition" and translator and make sure that the copy you order is an exact match. In the case of a technical text, getting the 3rd edition when the syllabus calls for the 5th edition is likely to be a big problem, and you shouldn't necessarily expect the seller to refund your shipping charge if you are the one who has made the mistake.
- Decide before you buy a book what ultimate use you expect to make of it: is it likely to become a treasured addition to your lifetime library, a quick one-time read before the exam, a working copy that you will need to annotate and/or highlight, a book that you will try to re-sell after using, or something that you will read while wearing white gloves so you can pass it on to your Uncle Saxby as a holiday gift. This set of choices may determine whether you need to buy a new or "like new" used copy, a very good used copy without serious flaws, or the proverbial "good reading copy" that may be available on the cheap but may also have only one or two readings left in it before the pages begin to slip free of the binding.
- If you are interested in re-selling your books, you'll be happy to learn that there's an entire chapter of Windwalker's book devoted to this topic. If your initial efforts in this area convince you that you've found a business enterprise that you'd really like to try seriously, then it is time to go online and find a reasonably priced copy of our earlier book for online booksellers, 'Selling Used Books Online: The Complete Guide to Bookselling at Amazon's Marketplace and Other Online Sites'.
Recommended Reading List:
'The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2003'
'The Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College (Fiske Gide to Getting into the Right College)'
'Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools You Should Know About Even If You're Not a Straight-A Student'
'The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College'
'Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different'
'How to Succeed in Your First Job: Tips for College Graduates'
'How to Go to College Almost for Free'
'Get Free Cash for College'
'Money-Winning Scholarship Essays and Interviews'
'Discounts and Deals at the Nation's 360 Best Colleges : The Parent Soup Financial Aid and College Guide'
'Paying for College Without Going Broke, 2003 (Princeton Review Series)'
'Don't Miss Out: The Ambitious Student's Guide to Financial Aid (Don't Miss Out, 27th Ed)'
'Complete Idiot's Guide to Financial Aid for College'
'Conquer the Cost of College : Strategies for Financial Aid'
'Rugg's Recommendations on the Colleges (19th Edition)'
'Student Body Shots: A Sarcastic Look at the Best 4-6 Years of Your Life'
'Looking Beyond the Ivy League: Finding the College That's Right for You'
'Ruminations on College Life'
'Confessions of a College Freshman: A Survival Guide for Dorm Life, Biology Lab, the Cafeteria, and Other First-Year Adventures'
'Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: The Hidden Ivies : Thirty Colleges of Excellence'
'Major in Success: Make College Easier, Fire up Your Dreams, and Get a Very Cool Job'
'College Survival (College Survival, 6th Ed)'
'Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning: Making It Into a Top College : 10 Steps to Gaining Admission to Selective Colleges and Universities'
'When Your Kid Goes to College; A Parent's Survival Guide'
'Almost Grown: Launching Your Child from High School to College'
'The Everything College Survival Book; From Social Life to Study Skills-Everything You Need To Know To Fit Right In-Before You're a Senior!'
'Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years'
'The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior to College Life'
'Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years, Third Edition'
'The Best 345 Colleges, 2003 (Princeton Review Series)'
'Profiles of American Colleges with CD-ROM (2003 Edition)'
'Chicken Soup for the College Soul: Inspiring and Humorous Stories About College (Chicken Soup for the Soul Series)'
'Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III: More Stories of Life, Love and Learning (Chicken Soup for the Soul)'
'Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff: Stories of Tough Times and Lessons Learned (Chicken Soup for the Soul (Paper))'
'The Healthy College Cookbook: Quick, Cheap, Easy'
'Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Love and Friendship (Chicken Soup for the Soul)'
'The (Reluctant , Nervous, Lazy, Broke, Busy, Confused) College Student's Cookbook'
'The Starving Students' Cookbook'
'Real SAT II: Subject Tests'
'Where's Dad Now That I Need Him? Surviving Away from Home'
'Kaplan SAT II Writing 2002-2003'
'What Smart Students Know: Maximum Grades, Optimum Learning, Minimum Time'
'The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens'
'Daily Reflections For Highly Effective Teens'
'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens Journal'
'Power Reading : The Best, Fastest, Easiest, Most Effective Course on Speedreading and Comprehension Ever Developed!'
'Teens Can Make It Happen: Nine Steps for Success' See also: |
