Clark Howard's Tips

Do comparison shopping for college textbooks online

August 27, 2007

Clark has one bit of advice for anyone who doesn't want to pay those hefty prices for college textbooks. His daughter's roommate spent $580 on books for class, while his daughter has to pay $135 for one book! Clark says to shop around for the books online.

CheapestBookPrice.com, AllBookstores.com, Biblio.com, AbeBooks.com, A1Books.com, BookFinder.com, ValoreBooks.com and Textbook411.com are all good sites for this purpose.

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Amazon is also doing big business selling college text books, and there are some British book websites that offer science textbooks for about 40 percent off the domestic price (even when you factor in the cost of international shipping.)

Don't buy your books before class starts. Go the first day and ask your professor if you can buy a prior edition and try to find it used.

More Clark Howard Consumer Tips Maximize your money in the market over time  Who wants to be a teenage millionaire?  Texas is the Fortune 500 capital  Fee-only financial planners are in your best interest  Claim your unclaimed money before the State does!  BusinessWeek: 25 ways to save more each month  Internet gets its wings, netbooks to be hot holiday item  Network DVR -- with no hardware -- coming in 2009  New site for auction of sports and concert tickets  Census Bureau: College is worth the cost!  Full list