Have you ever walked by the posters hanging in the Student Center bookstore that encourage you to buy textbooks early? Doesn’t it seem like “Buy Early, Get Used” has a double meaning? With the push to buy used textbooks (although smart, and sometimes cheaper), the rush doesn’t usually allow time to really think out what books students need and the best ways to get them cheap.
With the economy the way it is, students are looking for ways to save money, especially when it comes to buying textbooks. Textbooks, as most students know, are unbelievably overpriced, especially in the CCSU bookstore as well as other stores surrounding the school; despite being used or new.
That being said, it is all the more important that students wait to make sure that the books and classes they have are the right ones – so to make sure that they are not stuck with the unreturnable, wrong textbooks. Eventually it becomes apparent to students that if they wait a few weeks to buy textbooks, it allows them the time to choose correctly and wisely, and often to find good prices.
The first option is a given: buying online. This has become an ever-growing trend over the last couple of years. There are several reliable Web sites that are used more often because they are well known, such as amazon.com. There is also a plethora of other websites that can be used such as textbooks.com, which advertises up to 90 percent off of new and used textbooks. There is also biblio.com, which has a good reputation and good prices. There’s also a plus: the group sends some of its proceeds to literacy foundations. Collegeswapshop.com lets students buy books for cheap as well as sell used textbooks. Bookaboo.org allows students to compare book prices. There are several different websites to choose from. It would be wise to talk to your professor ahead of time to find out what books you need and be able to order them in a timely fashion.
If students don’t want to buy online, the bookstore is still an option, but only after they’ve collected all of their syllabi for the semester. First off, your schedule can change at any time before or during add-drop week, and a final schedule and the accompanying syllabi can take up to two weeks into the semester. The other advantage of actually waiting for a syllabus is knowing exactly which books are required for the class, according to what the professor is planning to assign. Common errors in ordering (on either side of the bookstore-professor equation) include different editions or publishers, or altogether wrong titles. Waiting a week or two or double checking with the professor cuts out these variables entirely.
If you don’t want to buy from a bookstore or online, you can rent them. One of the most popular Web sites to rent books from is chegg.com, but if students spend a few minutes to look around online, they will find many more options to rent.
It is unreasonable to think that professors would penalize students severely for hunting around for good prices, and even more unreasonable to think that the campus bookstore is the only or best place to go to find them. Laziness aside, students should be encouraged to take at least a week or two into the semester to think out their major textbook purchases before they blindly drop a couple hundred dollars.