Was looking on the USC bookstore website to figure out which textbooks I needed for my classes, and many of them are “mastered” for USC. I want to rent my textbooks cheaper so is it important to have that? What does it mean by mastered? Any information about textbooks would be very helpful
I am interested in the responses here. My son is a sophomore and last year he spent a lot of $$ on textbooks because he claimed they were required USC versions. He is my third in college and both my D at different U’s were able to significantly reduce costs by renting or buying used. He also said there’s no resale value because they require different versions every year. If there is a work around I would love to hear it. If not, seems like a huge rip off.
I also hate the school editions. Thankfully only happened once or twice. Once was foreign language and couldn’t quite match up ISBN with title so went with USC since I knew if it was wrong D could return it easily.
Email the professor directly or wait until first day of class if you can. I usually took kids list and looked up the books on Amazon. Ordered from there if cheaper. Sometimes the used priced at USC was cheaper than Amazon. There were some books that were USC versions. For those I would contact professor to see if older edition can be used. Have a friend who teaches there and allows older edition as long as students realize it might not directly correlate with page numbers.
The benefit I saw to USC was if there was a code or if D wasn’t sure she was keeping class - if you just return Amazon books for whatever reason (dropped, wrong one listed which happened once) you get the refund but have to pay shipping. Also learned that if you buy anything loose leaf, don’t open until you’ve had first class. D excitedly opened one such book only to find she really didn’t need part 2 and then couldn’t return it. We did have decent luck selling books back to Amazon.
I don’t know if they are required to do it, but I know lots of textbooks are also in library and can be used in some cases. Honestly as years went by book costs went way down. Was suprised how many upper level math classes didn’t even have textbooks and a good number of classes had non-textbook books that were cheap on Amazon. More reading packets that we usually printed out since D’s preference was to read paper not on-line.
Depending on class, maybe S could split book with a friend.
The textbook reps spend a lot of energy trying to sell instructors on customized versions of textbooks so that they cannot be resold at another university. They will often offer to include additional pages provided by the instructor and will in some cases offer royalties for the sale of the books with the added material.
Scmom12 is a wise woman and gives good advice.