"I can't believe I spent $500 on this sh*t."

Two good things come out of buying your college textbooks each year.  They are great for beating your roommate over the head when she doesn’t do her dishes a blanket-weight while studying out in the quad and the short change you get back on ‘book buy-back’ day (for drinking purposes).  The dark side of the spectrum of book buying?

You spend more money on Biostatistical Genetics than you would on your first born child. Not exactly my idea of a good time. (Nor is having a child…)

Fortunately, for all of those students out there planning a farewell party for the limited cash in their bank accounts, there is hope.  Thanks to the Higher Education Act of 2008, new textbook regulations will lower the price of textbooks. Hooray!

One way they will do this is by not requiring students to buy those CDs strapped to the insides of books that cost so much you’d think they contain flecks of gold.  Professors will also be encouraged to provide a list of books early, so all of us money-strapped students can scour the web for the best deals on those 10-pound behemoths we only open when it’s time for finals. These new regulations also promise student discounts on Amazon (for everyone with a .edu address!), and lower price options from publishing companies.

I say this calls for a textbook celebration!  Go ahead, take all of those old textbooks that you couldn’t sell back and turn them into a drinking game (take a drink every time you turn to a page without a picture. Good luck, English majors…).  Treat yourself to the most quality of vodkas (you’ve got extra cash now, right?!).  Flash back to third grade art class and whip up some paper mache.  It’s really your call how you want to party, but party you must.

After all, it’s Friday and it’s time to embrace college life without textbooks that only Lebron James could afford.

I’m not gonna lie – I love buying textbooks.  Yes, they are expensive and, yes, they are heavy and annoying to carry around.  But after enrolling for your classes and getting your book lists, there’s something about buying brand new books full of things you don’t know (I may or may not pretend to be Hermione Granger when I go textbook shopping…) that is just sort of…exciting.

Usually, this magical feeling fades after about two weeks of lectures, homework, and quizzes.  Then they are just regular books, collecting dust on my dorm room floor.  That is, until the semester ends and it’s time to try and get some of your cash back (because, let’s face it, you’re broke after spending your weekends at the bar instead of actually reading those books).

There are tons of places to sell back your books.  You could go to the campus bookstore (and get ripped off), the slightly off-campus bookstore (and get ripped off), sell them in your dorm, or use the hundreds of sites on the internet that offer great prices and relatively little hassle (too good to be true?).  I usually use the internet, unless I’m really in need of cash NOW.  To this point, I haven’t had an issue with selling my books back online, but I have always been a bit wary.

What if the website is lying and I never get my check?  What it something happens with the mail and my books disappear?

Turns out, maybe my fears weren’t so baseless.  One of our readers was recently scammed by a website that buys and sells textbooks from students.  Textbookwheel.com offers great prices for books and free shipping, obviously a very enticing offer.  Only, what you get in return is a check that’s about 1/10 of what you were originally offered and a note saying most of your books were lost in the mail (weird how that can happen when you send them in one big box…).  In fact, you’d be lucky to get a check at all.

Places like amazon.com and ebay.com have been proven effective and safe (for the most part) for years.  With new textbook sites popping up every day, it’s hard not to be tempted by their prices, but maybe it’s better to stick with what you know.  Sometimes all those great offers (like the one our reader fell for) are too good to be true. Don’t fall for them.

If you are selling your books, excercise caution – after all, you spent a lot of time and money buying these books, you don’t want to just give them away.  If you did, you could have dumped ‘em at the campus bookstore…or held onto them for a much-needed coffee table.