Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Buy New Textbooks

You may be tempted to buy new textbooks when you first start college, but they’ll waste you a lot of money. Whether you’re buying your textbooks at your college bookstore or online there are several reasons you should not buy new textbooks.

New textbooks are going to have the same information as a used book. I don’t know why people think that used textbooks are going to be any different than new textbooks. You will of course have to purchase books that aren’t missing any pages. Usually if you buy books online there will be a description of the condition of the textbook that will tell you whether or not the textbook is missing any pages. If you buy your textbooks at your college bookstore, quickly scan the book and when you get home look at it more thoroughly, if there are pages missing, simply return it to your bookstore.

New textbooks often come with CDs, but the used versions are going to have the CDs too. Now I will be honest and tell you that I bought a used textbook from my college bookstore and it was missing the CD, BUT that was my fault for not checking. If you are buying textbooks online, from a place like Ebay, ask the seller if the CD is included if the description doesn’t mention it.

A new textbook is free of highlighting, but is that really a big deal to you? I have often found that the information that is highlighted is important information anyway. Plus, a book that has been highlighted will usually be much cheaper.

Some teachers will allow you to use previous editions of the textbook they are using for their courses. Most of the time, you won’t find these older editions new.

New textbooks are often $50 to $100 each, but used textbooks can sometimes be found online for 5% of that price. Yes, that’s 5% not 50%. I bought several of my textbooks online this year, used. One of the books I needed was only $0.35 on Amazon’s Marketplace! New, the textbook cost over $70 and even used it was $55 at my college bookstore.

A new textbook won’t have writing in it. But I’ve found that some writing in textbooks is usually notes that are very helpful. Granted they aren’t as helpful as the notes in Harry Potter’s Potions book, but they’re still useful.

New textbooks are often overpriced. I don’t just mean that they’re expensive; I mean that sellers of these books are charging more than the cover price. This is just too much when you consider these books are already $50-100 and sometimes more than that. Do you really want to spend $100 on a textbook or spend $10-20 on it?

People often think that the price of a new textbook isn’t a big deal because they can sell it back to the bookstore at the end of the semester, but this isn’t always so. If you buy a textbook that has an access code in it and need to use that access code you will need to open it, it’s either in a sealed package or needs to have material scratched off the top, like a lottery ticket. Once the code is used, it cannot be used again, so the bookstore will not buy the book back. Just remember to make sure the used textbooks you are buying have unused access code, if there are any.

Another reason you will not be able to sell new textbooks back to the bookstore is because the instructor won’t be using the book the next semester, so it’s useless to the bookstore. So why not buy a used textbook and save yourself a lot of money. Then if you can’t sell it back, big deal.

If you buy new textbooks and then decide to withdraw from the course, you’ll be stuck with that book. College bookstores will only accept returns during the drop/add period, even if you still have your receipt.

You can save yourself a lot of money by buying used textbooks. I saved around $200-300 this semester buying used books. That’s money I can use on something much more interesting, such as DVDs.

Reference:

• Amazon