Textbooks can cost a small fortune. It seems that every year the required texts get heavier and the prices get higher. According to a study done by Senator Charles E. Schumer, the average student will pay almost $1,000 for books during a single year. An undergraduate student may end up paying up to $4,000 on books before he or she receives a degree. Unfortunately, distance learners don’t always escape this fate. While some online schools offer a virtual curriculum, free of charge, the majority of online colleges still require their students to purchase traditional textbooks with hefty price tags. Books for one or two classes could total in the hundreds. However, showing a little shopping savvy could save you a significant amount of cash
Before you even check the bookstore, take a look to see if you can find the material elsewhere. There are dozens of virtual libraries that offer reference material and literature with no cost to the reader. While newer texts are unlikely to be online, hundreds of older pieces with expired copyrights are all over the internet. The Internet Public Library, for example, offers links to hundreds of full-text books, magazines, and newspapers. Bartleby, a similar site, offers thousands of ebooks and reference materials free of charge. Readers can even download the books for free and view them on their desktop or handheld device. Project Gutenberg provides 16,000 e-books free for download, including classics such as Pride and Prejudice and The Odyssey. Google Scholar is offering an ever-increasing database of free academic articles and ebooks. If your curriculum consists of an over-priced packet of photocopied articles, check to see if the material is available here before forking over the cash.Another alternative is trying to find a student in your area who purchased the book during a previous semester. If your online school has message boards or other means of communicating with your peers, you may ask students who have taken the course before if they would be willing to sell the book at a discounted price. If you are near a physical college campus that offers courses similar to your online classes, scouring the campus for flyers advertising student-sold books may be your ticket to saving a few dollars. Before you begin a random search, find out what buildings house the departments that are likely to require your books. Students often post advertisements on the walls of their old classrooms.
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