To Buy Books, or Not to Buy?
That is the Question

In order to answer the “To Buy Books” question, let’s examine the current infection plaguing today’s college students. Relax parents; it's not contagious and we can cure it. It’s called buyer’s remorse, and thousands of students are inflicted at the beginning of every term. The symptoms don’t usually show up until finals week. That’s when students already under a high level of stress from exams, now realize that two or three of the “required” books they purchased were never assigned any reading. The symptoms peak at the college bookstore book buyback when the student finds out the most money they can recoup is half of the purchase price or worse. With the costs of books and tuition rising at twice the rate of inflation, you can’t afford to buy books that aren't essential to the course work.

Know When to Hold’em

Before spending a dime on your materials do a little research first. Start with your peer group and find out if anyone you know has taken the class from the same professor. Here’s a list of questions you need answers to:

1. Does the professor use a textbook and is it required or optional?
2. If it’s optional, did they read it and find it useful?
3. If it’s required, how much of the text did the professor assign to be read?
4. Is the information from the text covered in the lecture notes?
5. Does the textbook contain homework problems needed to accomplish the course work?
6. Do the test questions come directly from information in the text, lecture notes, other materials or some of each?
7. Does the professor have a copy of the text on reserve at the library?
8. Did any of your friends keep the textbook, and are they willing to let you borrow it?
9. Do you have any friends that will let you borrow or share the costs of the textbook?
10. Is your required book one of a small percentage available online for free?

If one of your peers still has the book and offers to sell it to you, hold off until you've done more research. You don’t want to buy books from your peers until your sure their not trying to sell you an old edition. Your professor may require the new information in the revision for your course work, rendering the old edition useless. Also, take into account the quality of information your getting from your source. It would add to your conviction to know what kind of grade your peer received and a little bit about their study habits to know if their opinion applies for you.

Next you want to get the same questions answered from the professor. If the term hasn’t started yet, you need to figure out how to contact the professor. Go online to your school’s website and see if the professor has a web page and contact information. Check the professor’s page first and see if the course syllabus is listed with information about the assigned textbooks. Next e-mail the professor a list of questions not answered by the syllabus.

Judgement Day

Once you have the answers from your sources, it’s time to make a personal judgment call. What are the tradeoffs between the convenience of owning versus attempting to borrow, share, check it out from the library, or even do without the textbook. Here’s a list of questions you should ask yourself before making the decision to buy books:

1. What kind of grade objective are you shooting for in this class?
2. What’s your preferred style of learning? Do you retain information better by listening to the professor’s translation and taking notes, or do you like to read and highlight the important information in the text?
3. From your research, do you believe the textbook is essential to accomplishing your objective?
4. If the textbook is essential, how much time do you believe you’ll need to study from it to accomplish your objective?
5. If a copy is on reserve at the library, can you accomplish your objective by only reading from it a couple of hours at a time?
6. If you discover you require considerable study time with the book, or find the reserve copy checked out too often, do you know someone taking the class who you could borrow or share with?

If you find the necessity and convenience of owning the textbook outweighs all attempts to save money, then you’re faced with your next challenge: Where are the safest and cheapest places to buy books?

We'll begin to answer that question by taking our first look at the local college bookstore. Many college bookstores offer to do your shopping for you:

Should you buy books using the college bookstore reserve program?





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