<p>That dreaded word, textbooks. The one thing that can cost more than tuition.<br>
DD will be taking 2 classes this summer at UA Early College. She has a whole list of books she needs to acquire. It shows she can “rent” some of them and those are at a bargain basement price of over $100 each. To rent said book for 4 weeks. OUCH! Just 2 of those lil puppies are “rentals”. </p>
<p>Real book vs e-book on her mini ipad or Macbook (if it is avail on the laptop?)?<br>
Where is the best place to purchase textbooks? UA Bookstore? Online? If online, where?
Other bookstore near UA? </p>
<p>We’ve used amazon (including the marketplace), half.com, and textbook.com. There are others as well - I usually google the ISBN and see what comes up.</p>
<p>All good advice. Also, be very careful when tempted to buy an e-book. Check it out carefully. For example, last fall I thought I would be clever and help my S by getting the books available on his iPad. Two potential issues he faced:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Not all professors permit electronics in class.</p></li>
<li><p>Some publishers are absolutely ridiculous with the protections they place on their works. The history book my S used had this restriction where you could only check out a chapter or two at a time, and had to go back online to refresh. It was more inconvenient that it was worth. We did get a couple of his books in loose-leaf binding and then I converted them into PDF on our high-speed scanner at the office.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It has been my personal experience that amazon, in particular, is almost always cheaper than the UA Bookstore (sometimes significantly so) and there is free shipping and no sales tax. Full of win in every regard from my perspective. Just email your professors now, and find out if the actual book is required, and then order now. If the package delivery is even remotely as ugly as it was last year in the first few weeks of school (and I think that can be assumed with the changes they are making and the time needed to work out the kinks it could very well be) then I would order them ahead of time, have them shipped to your home, and just bring them at move-in.</p>
<p>I’m taking Early College courses this summer too and I got my textbook on Chegg.com (rental). The book has some highlighting in it and a rare written sidenote here or there, but I don’t mind</p>