<p>I going to start college this Fall and need about $600 for my school textbooks. My parents offered to pay for them, but feel guilty about them having to pay for that. They’re already stressed about paying bills and that makes me feel even worse about accepting the money.</p>
<p>Have you tried to bring the cost down? Buying used on Amazon, ebay or one of the many other sites? Google the ISBN and you will get lots of hits. When buying used look at the sellers reviews, try to find books in “like new” condition with no highlighting or writing, make sure it comes with any CD’s that a new copy would come with and plan for at least a week shipping. When the semester is finished, sell them back, you would be surprised how much you can get for them. </p>
<p>If you don’t accept the money from your parents, what are your options? Can you do work study and save some money this semester to buy next semesters books when the time comes? Have you looked at your other BTS expenses and tried to cut there? I know many kids who get by on one set of sheets vs two. My S and his room mate never even opened the second set. I am sure there are many other items kids buy for the dorm room that rarely get used.</p>
<p>It’s to your credit that you are thinking of ways to ease the financial burden on your parents, but don’t feel guilty if you need to accept their offer to pay for your books. Books are a necessity for your schooling, not some extra frivolous cost. As mamom said, there are ways to acquire them that lower the cost over publisher’s list considerably. There are other favors you can decline to accept from your strapped parents, but I wouldn’t let the books keep you up at night.</p>
<p>Are you paying for any aspect of your college? I assume your own spending money is coming out of your pocket, since you are worried about this book amount. One thing to do is hustle now/when you get to campus to try to get a job during the school year. Even 8-10 hours/week at minimum wage is going to bring in over $200/month. If you are fairly frugal in your spending habit, you could be positioned to buy your own books by next semester. And work over the summer for the same. My kids are paying for spending money and books, but both have saved some money and found jobs the summer before freshman year of college. Even if you have to take money this semester, you can avoid it in the future.</p>
<p>Also, look at renting books through Chegg. And one of my kids (political science major) found that some of the books on the syllabus had only very short amounts of reading and she was able to get some from the library.</p>
<p>Look at other sources for books…online used books, renting books, etc.</p>
<p>$600 for a semester is high. I’ve had kids go thru 16 semesters of college and we never spent that much for ONE semester of books.</p>
<p>Take a look at buying books from students who took the courses your taking in previous years. I know my old university had an entire database for this. Your university might or might not have a book resale database, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts that at the very least it has a webpage where students can list ads for reselling items, not the least of which is books. By doing a bit of searching for used books and buying from students you can cut your textbook expenses in half.</p>
<p>Try to reduce the costs as much as possible, and don’t feel bad accepting help from your parents. We parents like to help!</p>
<p>My in laws paid for my kids’ books all through college. It was their high school graduation gift. The kids did their best to buy books at the lowest possible price, and they were extremely thankful for their grandparents’ gift.</p>
<p>$600 is very high for one semester of books. Try looking online for cheaper prices, or your school probably has a facebook group or something similar for selling old textbooks. Ask your professors if the text is required, or if it is just used as a reference (many professors list books that they never use). You could also ask if you are able to use an older edition of the textbook, as these are often significantly cheaper. You could also consider renting the textbooks if this comes out to be significantly cheaper.</p>
<p>Also, my school’s library rented out textbooks for a couple hours at a time. This can be a great option if you only need the textbook for the problems or if you only need a section. You can always make photocopies or scan the pages that you need. Try to see if your school has something similar.</p>
<p>There are also many ways to make this a one time cost for your parents, if you are feeling guilty about it. You can sell your books to other students or to your bookstore/Amazon/etc to recoup some of the cost, and use that to buy your next set of textbooks. You can also work a part time job (even the busiest student can swing 5-10 hours a week) to buy next semester’s textbooks.</p>
<p>Something else to consider is that if these courses are year-long intro sequences, they will often use the same textbook for the year. This makes the cost a little more reasonable, since it’ll last you for the entire year, rather than just a semester.</p>
<p>thatjuankid,
As everyone is telling you, there are ways to bring down the cost of books. Amazon is generally cheaper than the college bookstore and there is also a site called half.com, which is part of ebay. If you have your booklists already, go to the half.com website and put in all of the ISBN numbers. </p>
<p>There will usually be many sellers for these books. Some of them are large companies and some are individuals. Look for books in “very good” or “like new” condition which have no highlighting or markings in them. (This will be mentioned in the description of the book.) It’s trickier to do this and order your books from multiple sellers rather than just walking into your college bookstore, but it can be MUCH less expensive than getting all new books from the bookstore. I buy and sell my kids books on the half.com site, and the vast, vast majority of people who do this are completely honest about the condition of the books. I have saved lots of money on purchases over time and when my kids are done with the books, I just re-sell them through half.com and make a good deal of the money back.</p>
<p>"$600 for a semester is high." - It depends on the school and the major. </p>
<p>Often engineering students have a high first semester book bill - they take a lot of credits, with expensive books. But the Physics and Calc books might take the student through 2 or 3 semesters.</p>
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Yes, my daughter spent almost $300 on one book for Differential Equation. However, her professor let her class to use the older edition book which was a lot cheaper.</p>
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<p>It may be different at different schools and obviously my sample size is relatively small, but I don’t even know engineering students who spent this much on textbooks, unless the editions were brand new and there was no way purchase an old copy. In that case, it’s unfortunate, but it’s much harder to get around the cost, although you may be able to recoup some of the cost by selling the books back later.</p>
<p>I took many classes that have traditionally expensive textbooks (physics, calculus, organic chemistry, biochemistry, etc), often concurrently, and it’s often still possible to keep the cost down. If you can’t though, don’t feel guilty about it. You did all you could, and your parents wouldn’t have offered to pay for your textbooks unless they were able to and considered it an important part of your education. Make sure they know you are grateful for their help, and consider ways to keep the cost down in future semesters (selling books, sharing with a friend, using an older edition when appropriate, working some extra hours to contribute to the cost, etc). For many parents, graduating college and being able to support yourself as a working adult is often thanks enough for the investment they are putting in your education.</p>
<p>There is a huge textbook rental business popping on the internet. My D’s books for the semester totaled close to $1K new. Double major in bio and music. Music theory materials were very expensive! Through renting from the cheapest sources the tab came down to $350. Google ‘textbook rental’ and you’ll find a lot of info out there. </p>
<p>Do what you can to help your parents. Get the help you need from them. That’s what family means.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for the helpful advice! I managed to bring down the price to about $350. I accepted the just money I needed for books and I plan on paying them back whenever I get the chance. You guys give the greatest advice! Thanks again!</p>
<p>Head to your academic adviser pronto and change your major to Architecture. DD1’s textbooks per semester are in the $30-50 per semester category, maybe $100 if she has a gen-ed class thrown in. Usually there’s one book that you can buy used or online, and that’s it.</p>
<p>(of course you’ll spend $600/semester in materials and tools :))</p>
<p>I’m majoring in Secondary Education and Biology. Why would I change my major?</p>
<p>I worked every semester b/c I didn’t want my parents to add books or a spending allowance to what they were already paying. Why don’t you plan on getting a small job? It can really help you focus your schedule.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve been searching for part-time jobs around campus. Keeping my fingers crossed for responses.</p>
<p>Just kidding, it’s an architecture major joke 
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<p>Make sure you buy and keep any reference texts in your major. Renting or selling back may be an option for electives or non important major courses but for important courses you could be using those down the road, be it grad school or work. I have a nice reference library of basic STEM texts that I use once in a while…</p>
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<p>Glad you were joking… books may be cheap, but they have the highest unemployment rate of any undergrad major in the country when they get out of school. 
As she and her friends probably already know!</p>