I know it's cheaper to buy online than to buy them at the campus bookstore...but what are the best sites?
Another vote for Half.com Also, try amazon.com (you can buy books used there also), craigslist.org, and keep your eye out on campus (students sometimes re-sell the books on their own).
Abebooks.com is great for paperback (international edition textbooks). They are almost half the price of the hardbacks.
always ask upperclassmen who have taken your class with the same professor if you even need the textbook....More then half of my classes i took at UT, i could have done just fine without the text book...could have saved tons of money in retrospect
Co-sign abebooks. The price differences are usually pretty big, which means more beer money in your pocket.
Paperback edition is the cheaper option and publishers usually offer further discounts to students in countries like China and India (some of these textbooks were called "economy edition"). We have book stores here that would sell these editions (parallel imports) to students so the shipment cost is further reduced. So I guess you can check the India Amazon site or whatever online book store in India.
Goodness how things have changed. I still remember cashing my first internship paycheck (~$570) at Frost Bank, then spending almost every penny at the U of H bookstore for a semester's worth of undergrad intro business course textbooks, and this was January 2000.
kinda off topic, but still somewhat related: where do I sell my college textbooks in the Houston area? I know a bunch of places at College Station but I had already moved my books back to Houston and it's not worth the trip up there.. any ideas?
man talk about college text books about a month ago i went to the ucla book store when they held their annual festival of books. I was looking to possibly get an econometrics book just to kind of refresh my memory on concepts/theory behind it since i forgot a lot of what I had "learned" for my tests. I knew prices were high but they seemed to have shot even higher. books I remember that were around 80-100 bucks used were going for 130-140 used. Some of the new books were like 160. its just ridiculous its the only way publishing companies stay in business. They have a relatively inelastic good (students will have to get a hold of a textbook somehow) and they exploit it. Its smart business but its a shame that the cost of getting a decent education becomes a barrier to many people in this country
