<p>How much do you budget each semester for college textbooks?</p>
<p>It tremendously depends on what you’ll be taking. Lots of science and math classes – I wouldn’t be at all surprised to spend $750 fall and $500 spring, even buying used. (Luckily sometimes a calculus or physics book is the same book for the second semester of the course, thus the lower cost.) </p>
<p>If you’re taking mostly humanities courses, I’d expect to spend more on the order of $400 a semester, especially if you buy used books on-line.</p>
<p>Son has bought ALL his textbooks online for 1/2 price or much less in some cases since HS. Go to Amazon, put in the USBN # or the title and author and look for the used books link to outside book sellers. It has saved us hundreds of $$.</p>
<p>DS takes nearly all math and science courses. His cost for books about $200 per term(his school has 3 terms per year). He finds many math texts on line as open texts (no cost to download). He takes 5 or 6 course per term.</p>
<p>I have to get 8 books for my classes this fall. Only two of them are over the 100 mark</p>
<p>Well, UCSB is on the quarter system, but this year I’ve spent about $970 on books. The books were for 13 different classes, and a few of them shared the same book, so I’d think that if all of them were unrelated then it might be a little more. I’m a first-year, so I’ve been taking mostly classes for GE and pre-major requirements.</p>
<p>D1 is a math/econ student. She only spends a few hundred $ a semester.</p>
<p>D is a visual arts major, and spends very little on books. But, her art supplies are expensive. Less, though, I think, than books would be. It really depends on your course of study.</p>
<p>S’ is in a humanities major at a school that has three terms and books have been $200-$300 each term. Most of what he has had have not been actual textbooks though. Usually they are direct sources, so he’ll often have about eight-ten small books for three classes. We shop around before each quarter and the bookstore has always been competitively priced.</p>
<p>To my great surprise, D at U. Chicago as a Biology/Spanish major, with lots of social science and humanities courses for the core, only spent a few hundred per year on books!</p>
<p>The non-science classes did not use textbooks. They used original readings, so that may have cut the cost, but 3-4 trade paperbacks at $15 each still is not cheap. The science classes would typically have one text used for several quarters, so that helped cost wise. And they had a lot of extra material on reserve. </p>
<p>She also used abebooks on occasion to save a bit on some things.</p>
<p>Depending on one’s study style, using library reserve books instead of a personal copy may or may not work. If one’s style suggests a personal copy to mark up, then not getting one would be false economy - save $150 (book cost) on a course that costs thousands? And then not do as well?</p>
<p>My kids have probably averaged about $40 per course, systematically getting used books where possible. One an English major (so some popular books cost $1 used, but sometimes she has to buy a bunch of new poetry books that go for about $.50/page), the other a pre-med social science type (so $250 textbook/study guides, but they last all year, usually, and some classes have no text at all).</p>
<p>S (math major) had no math text this year, read classics which he got from Amazon or used, had no Core Bio text (could have used one, though), and got a couple of books for his CS courses. Total: about $350 for the year. We were very surprised. </p>
<p>Next year, based on what he’s intending to take, it’ll be more, but on the order of $600-ish for the year. Sure can’t complain!</p>
<p>A friend of his, who is an upper div genetics major at another school, has books that routinely run $200+. His budget runs closer to $800/semester.</p>