Hello! I was wondering, how do students afford their textbooks? Can you take out loans on books, or is it all out of pocket? If it is out of pocket, how are they made affordable? Thanks.
Many students work in the summer to pay for books. Sometimes their families help them pay for books.
My kids work summers and part-time during the school year. They cover their own book costs. Do some research on book rentals and buying used through amazon. Overall costs can vary dramatically by major… engineering and science, math can be pretty pricey but other majors can be pretty reasonable.
Try ebay also.
There is great variation in book cost. Online codes and clickers for large lectures are are expensive and mandatory for some classes. We’ve had good experiences most of the time with used books on Amazon - they say if there’s highlighting, writing, etc. Often used books have no online codes.
Some in our department have taken to using books available through Openstax. These can be downloaded free on the internet, but so far there are not a lot of titles available. Those that are seem to be works in progress if you will. Students get on board with “free” though.
If you have enough FinAid, the school may have a way for you to “charge” your books to your student account. Of course that would only apply to books bought or rented from the college bookstore.
It is always good to show up at registration with $1,000 or so from summer job earnings.
Before you buy, email the professor and ask about your course texts. My daughter got all of her books online through various vendors for minimal costs.
The latest college/bookstore scam is to require a school specific edition of a textbook that is not available used. Many times the school edition is exactly the same as the non-school edition which can be found used on online.
My kids Calc3 book was school specific for $266. It was a mashup of two individual books with missing chapters that could be purchased online cheaply. The Prof. let the students know what pages the assignments were on and didn’t use the onetime code for submitting homework.
Wait until the first day of class to find out if the book is really required or just suggested.
Yes… wait and ask professor. Friend that teaches tells students to get older, cheaper editions which are fine for her class. But campus bookstore always lists newest edition.