One of the biggest expenses every student has to deal with at the start of each new semester is textbooks. Luckily for poor college students’ wallets, there has been a growing trend in college classes to utilize PDFs of book chapters, articles and notes instead of textbooks. However, most of the standard PDF readers (like Adobe Acrobat or Preview on Macs) don’t allow you to make any sort of edits, so if you want to be able to add notes or highlight important sections like you would with a regular textbook, you’ll have to spend your money to print them out.

That’s why you should try out Nitro PDF Reader. It’s the only free PDF reader and creator on the market that also allows for editing. With Nitro PDF, you can highlight, underline, and cross out selections of text, add notes and more. You can even pull out important quotes and pictures to use later when creating study guides or writing papers!

Nitro PDF works great for collaborating on group projects, too. You can add in your own comments or edits, and then save and share them with others in your group. You can also reply to others’ comments directly into their comment box, which keeps the discussion thread focused onto one topic.

Nitro PDF is also good for use with important documents. Type directly onto the document to fill it out (even if it doesn’t have designated form fields) — just select the “Type Text” command from the menu at the top of the window, click the cursor where you want to type, and start typing! You can also digitally sign the document, eliminating the whole print, sign, scan, and send back method that we’re all used to. With Nitro PDF Reader, you can import in a scanned copy of your signature, and the program will automatically optimize it and make the background transparent, and you can also rotate and resize it to make it look just the way you’d like it to before sending.

If all that wasn’t cool enough, you can also create PDFs with Nitro PDF Reader from Microsoft Word or any of the 300+ other file types supported by the program.

All of these great features are available on the free version of Nitro PDF Reader, but right now, Nitro is running a special on its Professional program with more enhanced features. Until September 15th, simply enter the code “BACKTOSCHOOL” at checkout to save 50%.

With Nitro PDF, the days of lugging your heavy textbooks to class or wasting your money (and paper and printer ink) on printing out PDFs are long behind you. Use Nitro PDF Reader to add whatever notes and markup you want, and then all you’ll need to bring to class is your laptop!

Heading to the campus bookstore is your most convenient, but also most expensive option. Turning to online sites like Amazon for books can save you a buck, sure…if you don’t mind waiting half a semester for your books to arrive in the mail from random retailers all over the country.

What was once a losing battle, however, has been revolutionized by Chegg. In addition to offering a number of other academic services, they’ll get you your books — to purchase (new and used) or rent — when you need them, and for a great price.

Chegg, the social education platform, is transforming the way millions of students learn by connecting them to the people and tools needed to succeed in college.  Students on more than 7,000 campuses nationwide use Chegg 365 days a year for: Homework help, Course selection, Note taking, Textbook and e-textbook rentals and Daily deals. As a part of the company’s philanthropic efforts, Chegg is dedicated to its Chegg For Good program, where it does good for education, the environment and various communities.

Even better, we’re working with them for an upcoming giveaway we’re doing in September. So stay tuned for more Chegg awesomeness.

Our generation has been called a lot of things over the years, and not all of them have been particularly flattering. But I think we can all agree that we are the generation that thrives on technology. They call us the “thumb generation” because we’re always texting or typing, and that’s not really something we can argue with. We are the age of the internet, the cell phone, and the iPad. We are the age of all things digital.

Just think of all the technological developments that there have been since our parents were college seniors. For one thing, if you were a college girl when you mom was a college girl you wouldn’t be reading a blog. You wouldn’t even know what a blog is. You wouldn’t even have cordless phones, never mind a cell phone, AND you’d be using a typewriter to write your final papers. And none of it would have seemed the least bit weird to you. But it seems weird to us. But you know what, all the stuff that we do now may eventually seem outdated to our children some day.

Like what, you say? Why I’m so glad you asked…

I always try to get through the semester buying the least amount of books possible, but this semester I’ve loaded up on psychology courses. And for any Psych majors or minors out there, you know what that means – 100+ dollars for the latest editions (times 4 in my case!).

While my education is important, I have to believe that I can get my learn on without giving up my new shoe money! So I did some intense Googling combined with some asking around and came across BookRenter.com.

Now I’ve heard about renting books before, but I’ve always been into buying them; you know, just on the off-chance I’d want to keep them. Well in the 3-and-a-half years I’ve been in college the only books I’ve kept are ones that couldn’t be sold back, which means I’ve been throwing away money like it’s my j-o-b and I’ve finally realized the value of renting books.

So now you’re all like, okay, I like the idea of renting books, but what if I do miraculously love my economics book and don’t want to part with it?

Well if you decide you want to buy the book from BookRenter, you just keep it and pay the original purchase price! Or if you need to keep it for longer, like say maybe you had to take an incomplete in your Biology class and need the book to make up some tests, you can just extend the rental period.

And if you’re like me and need to highlight important passages or take little notes in the margins, which is another reason I’ve stayed away from rentals, BookRenter’s OK with that, too. Well, as long as you don’t go crazy with your doodles and mark up every. last. page. Minimal markings are fine (both for your GPA and for BookRenter) and really, there’s no need to go all Picasso with the highlighter in the margins.

So let’s get real…textbooks cost, like, what – $700 to $1,000 a year? Why not rent for a fraction of that? Not to mention with the money you are saving you can invest in stocks or a stellar summer internship wardrobe or a really cute Chanel bag.

But wait, it gets better! (Do I sound like an infomercial guy yet?) BookRenter is giving away 1-year’s worth of free textbooks to a CollegeCandy reader!! Um, an entire year’s worth of not having to worry if I can buy the expensive wine or not? YES, PLEASE! Not to mention, registration is super easy; just fill in some basic info (name, email, class year..that’s it) and you’re good to go. The catch? It’s only open until January 31st,  so get your little butt over there and sign up now!!

And if you’re not already convinced that book renting is for you, this will just make your heart melt — BookRenter promotes child literacy! With every order you make, BookRenter makes a donation to FirstBook, which provides free books to children in need. So not only are you saving bundles of money yourself, but you’re giving free books to children in need! Yay for literacy!

I know you might still be on the fence, but take it from a girl who never would’ve considered renting before this site and just give it a shot. With most books listed at nearly 75% off the bookstore price, you will be amazed at what you can save.

What have you got to lose? Well, besides missing out on the contest deadline!

With study sessions fueled by Hot Pockets and Monster energy drinks, Thanksgiving has been the light at the end of this dark tunnel. Seeing family and friends, eating a hearty home-cooked meal, and doing absolutely nothing but sleeping and shopping for days in a row… it’s almost too good to be true.

But it’s not! It’s real. And I’m so thankful for this refreshing calm before the storm that is finals that it almost makes me want to stay home in a cranberry sauce-induced food coma forever. Because as great as college life is and as grateful as I am to be here, there are a few aspects of it that I am oh so NOT thankful for.

[Click on any image to view the gallery!]

Campus bookstores suck. They convince you that you need to buy a textbook for $150, and you’ll crack it open on that one day you were bored feeling studious, before realizing your exams are straight from the class notes/Powerpoint slides and you don’t even need that 10 pound eyesore in the first place.

No harm done, you’ll just return it, right?

Right, except that you’ll receive a measly $20 (if you’re lucky).

I for one am tired of returning my (barely opened) books for a small fraction of what I paid for them. It’s spring, and I need every extra dollar for what’s really important in college: new bikinis and happy-hour margaritas, duh! So I decided to compile a list of places to do textbook business that are better than the bookstore. Try one of these on for size and then take all that moolah to the bank (or Lulus.com).

1. Bookrenter.com
BookRenter.com is the leading textbook rental site – Its saves college students $1000s of dollars a year on college textbooks. Rent textbooks at bookrenter and get free shipping both ways! Bookrenter also has the largest selection and cheapest books making it the best book rental site out there!

2. Chegg.com
Offers free shipping, buyback at 100% of sale price, and they even plant a tree every time you sell a book (seriously!).

3. Ecampus.com
Sell back your books and you can enter into a sweepstakes to win a new Apple iPad! They also sell books for less than half their original price, so if you don’t win that iPad, you will have plenty of extra money to buy one.

4. Cash4Books.net
Same deal. Cash back, free shipping.

5. TextbooksRUs.com
Rated #1 by CampusGrotto as the best value, lowest price and best buy-back deals! Hollerrrr!

So there you have it, folks – plenty of options to make some serious money back on those barely-used books (unless you count “beer rest” as a use, in which case they were quite helpful) and get a deal on some newish ones for next year. Now you’ll never have to pay full price again and will only have to visit the campus store for cute sweats to wear when you’re hungover!

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman, so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like the gyno-gender debate!) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

It’s textbook time again - the moment when you look down your syllabus and groan at the hundreds of dollars that could have gone to things like food (or that fantasy fall wardrobe) that you will instead be laying down for an eight-pound anatomy book. Sigh. Well, don’t get your panties in a bunch just yet; suddenly, there may be other options. Between some schools giving out Kindles for free <incoherent jealous muttering> and a few textbook companies making their wares available for download on smart phones, this year we could do away with the piles of heavy, bound books…

But do we want to?

I have to admit, as a writer, I have a deep love of books – I love having them on my book shelf, I love thumbing through the pages, I adore the way they smell (yes, I’m a book-geek). But I also have to admit, I own a Kindle (and I’m not the only one!). As much as I love the paper-and-ink babies, the average college student spends $900 on textbooks. 900 freaking dollars! And like buying a car, you probably aren’t going to get most of that hard-earned cash back, even if you resell the books back to the bookstore (assuming you get any at all). Most e-readers or phone apps give you a break on the prices of books, which could be a big deal if you’re strapped for cash.

Also, unavoidably, books are heavy, and particularly if you’re majoring in something like bio-chem, you could be looking down a semester of lugging around your body weight in textbooks. So being able to tuck an e-reader the size of notebook into your bag and still have all of your books is a major plus point. Oh yeah, and bonus points to the electronic books for being green – way to save those trees!

The downside of course is that, as hard as they try, there are some things that e-readers just can’t do the way books can. Sure, you can highlight and make notes on the thing, but you’re going to have to spend more time tapping it out than you might with paper and pen, and it’s harder to go back and flip through your notes that way too. And speaking of notes, remember the Orwell debacle that Amazon had a while back? Remember how everyone who had been making notes on those books on the Kindle just lost them with no hope of recovery? Yeah.

You also have to contend with the fact that you can only get books on your e-reader that have been digitized to the online store, and if one of your required books isn’t on there, then you’re going to have to shell out for the paper copy anyway. And, while they may save you money on the books, e-readers are still an expense, one that you have to weigh against your possible savings. Finally, let’s not forget that at the end of the day e-readers and phones are technology, and like all tech, if you forget to charge the battery, all you have is a big hunk of plastic. I don’t know about your school, but I doubt my teachers would accept “I forgot to plug in my book” as an excuse for not having your text.

So which way do you lean? Are you as torn as I am? Will you embrace the technological revolution or will your backpack still be full of books this semester?

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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.

Take that, bookstores!

So, despite my general love of books in the book form (there is nothing more satisfying than the sound of a book being cracked for the first time), I have begun to let my eyes wonder over to the E-Reader realm. It’s a bit cheaper when you add up the cost of all those books you’re buying, it’s good for the trees of the world, and since there has been talk of loading text books onto them, they are definitely something to look into.

And if not, I could still carry my ENTIRE library around with me without the aid of a large, burly moving man.

Yes, some are totally out of anyone’s price range and some are really crappy, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there for you. There are two really good options for e-readers out there today and I know that one of them will work for you. Trust me.

The Kindle

Everyone is pretty familiar with this device, thanks to Oprah. It’s pretty much awesome. It holds 1,500 standard size books, has a battery life that lasts for days if using the 3G network (or weeks if you’re not), and the newer version sports 16 shades of gray (which, admittedly, doesn’t sound that exciting but, keep in mind, it’s basically in black and white and grayscale adds depth).

The Kindle comes with a built-in dictionary that allows you to look up any word you come across that you don’t know simply by tapping it. And reading off of a Kindle is not like reading from a computer, so it doesn’t hurt your eyes as much as sitting online and Facebook stalking all night would.

The best part, though? The 3G network is completely free, allowing you to download new books, newspapers and magazines virtually anywhere. In the world. Without having you wait in line at Barnes and Noble.

But all that awesomeness comes with a hefty price tag. This Amazon exclusive is about $360, which is not cheap for the struggling college set. However, you can get a slightly older (or gently used) one and save a few dollars. And if you read a lot, the discounted price of $9.99 for downloaded books could end up saving you money in the long run.

If all else fails, ask for this for graduation. It’s perfect for long subway rides to that new office job, or for saving you some extra space in that tiny city apartment.

Sony – Reader Digital Book

This is the second best option. It’s cheaper… and it’s evident why. Whereas the new Kindle is full of flash and extra features (and a much cooler name!), this older Sony is basically, well, basic. It’s exactly what you need to function and nothing really extra. It handles all the same files and formats, but has only half the grayscale WAY less room for data on it.

It also doesn’t have connectivity that the Kindle carries, meaning you’ll have to download from your own home computer. Which, while not as awesome as the Kindle, really isn’t that bad. I mean, how often do you really need to download a new book when you are on your way to class or sitting in a restaurant?

The Sony Reader is functional and will do for most people’s daily needs. With a price tag that’s $100 less than the much flashier Kindle, and a pretty steady track record of, you know, working, it’s worth looking into.

There are some other e-readers out there but they’re really not worth it. None of the them come close to touching either products above. As more people turn away from traditional print media (which they shouldn’t do, print media is awesome…and you can’t get those fun perfume samples from an E-Reader) either one will earn back their price tag.

And you can put the $50 you got for selling back your $400 worth of text books towards it.
Think of it as a really lame rebate.