College is expensive, but it’s easy to forget about the hidden costs that often aren’t included in tuition.  For example, room and board, food, Internet access for online classes and research, and textbooks all add up to make college even more expensive than the official price tag would indicate.

Luckily, there are ways to cut costs on these items, and therefore make your entire college career more affordable.  Since most students live off campus and work part or full time in order to pay their living expenses, we’ll take a look at the one expense that sneaks up on almost all students across the board: buying the required textbooks.

Most colleges and universities have campus bookstores where you can buy the required textbooks in between classes and on breaks, but for this convenience you’ll pay full price or close to it.  To get around this, go to the campus bookstore at least a week before classes start and write down the ISBNs for each textbook you will need to buy.  Then follow these recommendations for finding your textbooks at discounted prices.

Buy used textbooks.  Oftentimes campus bookstores will also sell used copies of the textbooks required for each class.  You may also be able to find used bookstores near your college campus that sell the textbooks you need.

Buy your textbooks online.  The Internet provides a great way to save money on textbooks.  You can often find your books for half or a third of the new price via third party sellers on websites such as Half.com and Amazon.com.  Just be sure to check that the textbook you are buying has the correct ISBN, as repeat editions are often published, and you’ll need to make sure you have the correct one.

Buy your textbooks from other students.  Sometimes you can contact the teacher who runs the class to see if any of last semester’s students are selling the books you need.  You should also check campus bulletin boards to see if anyone has posted an ad listing the textbooks for sale.

Sell used textbooks at the end of the semester.  No matter what you paid for your textbooks, you can often recoup some or all of your expenses by reselling your books at the end of the semester.  Many campus bookstores buy back textbooks at the end of each semester, in order to stock their selection of used textbooks.  You can also sell your books directly to other students, or sell them online via websites like Amazon.com and Half.com.

Textbooks are part of the cost of going to college, for sure, and often a hidden cost because students don’t necessarily think about books when they are planning how to pay for their tuition.  But if you play your cards right, the cost of textbooks can be minimized quite a bit!