Now that you’re past the big shock of the cost of college tuition, housing, and your student’s meal plan, here’s another shocker you need to prepare yourself for… the cost of textbooks.
With college textbook prices 812 percent higher than they were a little more than three decades ago, it’s no wonder you can hear the quiet moan of parents digging into their near-empty wallets as they fund another college expense they didn’t see coming.
Thankfully, there’s more than a few budget-friendly websites out there that offer amazing deals to keep your textbook costs in check. So, before you go paying full price for textbooks this semester, check out these websites where you can score big on savings!
Amazon
Amazon is definitely the go-to place for students to save big bucks on textbooks. Students can search, buy, rent or sell textbooks and hard-to-find eBooks from one of the most trusted and well-respected online shopping sites on the web. Plus, another great perk of shopping on Amazon is that students with a university email address are eligible for six months of free Amazon Prime through their Amazon Student program, which means students receive free 2-day shipping. You can’t beat that!
Textbooks.com
Slated as “home of the most used textbooks on the web,” Textbooks.com is an easy to navigate website with 10 million textbooks in stock (yup… you heard it right, 10 million). You should find what you’re looking for here! Savings are up to 90%, they have easy 30-day returns and, one of the coolest perks is they offer free shipping on any order over $25.
Chegg
Chegg is a simple to use site where students can save a bundle on books. You can buy textbooks or rent them for up to 90% savings. Plus, they have a 21-day risk-free return, (which is awesome if you decide to drop a class), they offer free shipping on any order over $35 and book returns are totally hassle-free. Just print the prepaid shipping label and send the book back. It doesn’t get much easier than that!
Freetextbooks.com App
The free FTB app, which is rated 4.1 out of 5, is an awesome tool for students. They make it super easy to purchase books and sell them hassle-free and they’ll even deliver your books right to your door within an hour in major college and university towns. (As of now, only some states and schools are able to experience the full functionality of the app since they’re in the midst of growing.)
Bookfinder.com
This super nifty site lets you find the cheapest new and used books by simultaneously searching for the textbook you’re looking for on all the top textbook websites. Whether you’re searching for new or used textbooks, rare books or out-of-print books, Bookfinder.com compares availability, pricing, and shipping from more than 100,000 sellers to make sure you get the best deal out there.
AllBookstores.com
Slated as the “world’s greatest place to buy books,” AllBookstores.com knows college textbooks. They’ve been in the business of saving students money on college textbooks since 1999 and they consider themselves “experts” in the field of finding textbooks at the cheapest prices. What’s great about AllBookstores.com is that they do all the work for you. They find the absolute lowest book prices on new, used and rental textbooks by comparing prices at more than three dozen online bookstores from thousands of booksellers.
Abebooks.com
Here students can save anywhere between 50% and 90% on textbook list prices or save a bundle on gently used textbooks. Booksellers on AbeBooks.com offer a huge variety of new and used textbooks along with reference books, scholarly books, academic journals and a massive range of classic literature.
And, for students, researchers and the intellectually curious, here’s a few great sites that offer a wide variety of discounted and, in some cases, FREE eBooks.
Gutenberg.org
Project Gutenberg offers upwards of 57,000 FREE eBooks. The site offers some of the world’s greatest literature with a focus on older works in which the copyright has expired. No fee or registration is required. All books from Project Gutenberg are completely free to read and distribute, and no special app is required to read the books.
Manybooks.net
Manybooks.net offers more than 33,000 deeply discounted and FREE eBooks. Everything from adventure and fantasy to horror and mystery, you’ll find it here!
Bartleby.com
This site offers students and researchers unlimited access to a variety literature, reference books and information on the web, completely FREE of charge.