Finding low cost textbooks for classes at desert community colleges

For college students in California, the cost of textbooks may well cost more than the classes. Students have always searched for cheap textbooks, buying the used at school bookstores, from ads on bulletin boards, or from a friend whose taken the class already. But today there are a wealth of places selling textbooks at very low cost.

Before just getting online and buying a textbook, there are some considerations to be taken into account. Find out the new and used price from the bookstore to get an idea of what the book costs. Determine what condition you can live with if the book is used. For example, some used books are almost like new and some will have writing and highlighting all over them. Can you live with a clean book, but maybe it is missing the cover, or do you prefer a pristine text?

Both community colleges in the desert area, CMC and COD, use Follet books as their supplier. Follet offers in store purchase and online purchases, but students should call or go into the store as Follet has now started its own textbook rental program. For a much lower price than a new book, and less than most used books, a student can pay a fee for the book and return it at the end of the semester.

There are also several companies online who now rent textbooks. A Google search for textbook rentals will yield abundant results. If a student can’t find the book locally, this can be a good option. One professor recommends Chegg.com, saying his students find the best deals there. Chegg also pays up to 40 percent more than its competitors when buying used textbooks from students.

At CMC, because the population is so rural and the average income is close to the poverty rate, the college library tries to purchase each textbook to put in a reserve collection for students and lists all available books on their website. These books may only be used in the library for a few hours at a time, but students can get assigned reading done and even make copies of the workbook or problems pages. This is a popular program so students shouldn’t expect a book to be available ten minutes before class. To learn more about low cost textbooks at COD, read the press release explaining all available programs..

Bookfinder.com is a useful search engine for students as it compiles results from many bookstores and gives those results on one page. No more visiting each online bookstore to find the lowest priced textbooks. In a recent search at Bookfinder, a current political science book search resulted in prices of $ 5.50 for a new book and a mere $3.95 for a used textbook. This book costs almost $70 at Follet.com.
You can learn more about COD’s book programs here. For information at CMC, call the school at (760) 366-3795 and ask for the bookstore.

If you need more than just books, there are also calculators for rent. To learn more about this read the article Renting Calculators 101 by a fellow education examiner Donna Gundle-Krieg.