In lieu of my normal Freebie Friday posts, I am running this, the the third and final installment on money-saving ways to secure books for college.
As mentioned in my earlier posts on Wednesday and Thursday, this information comes from the sample chapter I wrote for a book idea I’d proposed to Adams Media–Cash for College: The Suddenly Frugal Guide to Financing a Child’s Education. Unfortunately, Adams, which has published both Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier and Healthier for Less
Today’s blog posting shows how students who are organized and disciplined enough can get through a semester at college without spending a dime on books. That’s because they borrow them from the library.
It’s a little-known fact that most college and university libraries stock nearly all the books that professors assign–from the textbooks they are teaching out of to the novels you may be reading in an English class. The borrowing approach works best if your college library belongs to a consortium of sorts–so that if the library on your campus doesn’t have the book you need, you can search for and request it from another library in that consortium. One college student I know was able to do this borrowing dance for all the books she needed for her courses and saved about $800 per semester! Granted, she was constantly checking out and renewing these books throughout the semester. But for her it was worth it to her to spend this time to save that amount of money.
Finally, don’t forget that you can get money back for any textbooks you spend money on, with the government’s tax credit for textbooks. To qualify you must file an annual tax return. At that time you can apply for a tax credit to get reimbursed for up to $2,500 in college expenses, including textbooks, via the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which is part of the same legislation that brought you Cash for Clunkers.
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Checking out books at the college library is a good idea but it may not be work all the time. Some college library’s put the class textbooks on reserve (can’t be checked out). Also most libraries won’t let you renew a book if somebody is requests it and puts a hold on it. Chances are if it is a textbook for a class there may be many people who want that book and who put a hold on it. That means you either have to return the book (because you can’t renew it) or you rack up overdue fines. College libraries are getting wise to students holding on to textbooks and racking up fines just so they don’t have to buy the book. Many have made it so that the fines, late fees, and penalties for a book long overdue (say the whole semester of that class) are more expensive than the book itself.
Another great location to look for textbooks is through the library’s online collection. More and more regular textbooks are available online and college libraries are buying them. Not everything is available, but it is worth looking in the college library’s catalog to see if they have a link to the book online in full text.
I have found that the library usually does NOT have the text books I need for the semester. Usually becuase of new editions, the books get outdated quickly and becuase course textbooks change often.
What I found helpful instead was that the school library usually has subscriptions to ebook sites where I sometimes found my textbook without having to pay lots of $
Thanks for letting us know this.