According to research from the Education Data Initiative, the average college student spent between $628 and $1,471 on textbooks and supplies during the 2021-2022 academic year. While spending on course material has declined by nearly 50% over the last decade—mainly thanks to the proliferation of ebooks—it’s still a big chunk of money for most college kids.
There are measures students can take to mitigate the cost of textbooks though: borrowing a textbook instead of purchasing it, buying it used, or buying a previous edition (and hoping the academic consensus hasn’t changed between editions). Some textbooks can even be downloaded for free.
How to find free textbooks online
Some course-required textbooks are public domain—old enough that no one holds the rights to them—so it’s perfectly legal and ethical to download them. This is a particularly good strategy for literature—it’s not like you’re cheating Chaucer out of royalties when you download The Canterbury Tales. Here are a couple of websites you should checkout before dropping any money on this semester’s textbooks.
Project Gutenberg. Named after the inventor of the printing press, Project Gutenberg is a library of over 70,000 free ebooks. Founder Michael J. Hart states his mission is to “provide as many e-books in as many formats as possible for the entire world to read in as many languages as possible to break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.” Their collection is available in plain text, as well as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and Plucker when possible.
The Assayer. The Assayer is an online catalog of books whose authors have chosen to make them available for free. Founded in 2000, The Assayer’s focus is on books related to math, science, and computers. This platform also allows you to leave reviews on books you’ve read and engage with other readers too. A word of caution: Whether an author has the legal right to make their work available for free likely depends on their relationship with their publisher. I assume the Assayer is dotting their i’s and crossing the t’s in terms of rights, but I can’t say for sure.
How to borrow textbooks using an online lending library
Online libraries where users can “borrow” books by downloading them were a great resource for students, but a March, 2023 court ruling held that controlled digital lending—an online “library” buying a book, digitizing it, then sharing copies electronically—is likely a violation of copyright law. This doesn’t mean all digital libraries are in question, though.
Libby: This is an easy-to-use, free app links you with your local library so you can download e-books, music, magazines and more. You can read Libby books on your Kindle if you want, and unlike some other online libraries, Libby is not legally questionable, so it definitely makes sense to check here before dropping money at your college book store.
How to rent textbooks online
Chances are very good that you are never going to open that calculus textbook after you fail your class, so there’s no reason not to rent it instead of buying it. There are a number of online sources that will allow you to rent textbooks for a fee, including:
These services all do basically the same thing for similar prices, but it makes sense to compare added perks like shipping costs, selection, and loyalty rewards.
How to buy used textbooks online
There’s no reason to buy a new textbook if a used one is available for purchase. But before you buy any textbook, check with your professor about the edition. Sometimes having last year’s version of a textbook is fine. Sometimes it isn’t.
Here are some online retailers of textbooks:
Amazon.com: If I were looking for a used textbook, I’d start with Amazon. Not only is their selection unimaginably huge, the shipping is free for Prime members, and college students get a nice discount on Prime membership. (Yes, it’s a way of getting their hooks into you, but it’s still a good deal.)
AbeBooks: If you’d rather not send Amazon any money, you might find what you need on AbeBooks, a marketplace of independent books sellers from all over the world.
BigWords: This is a comparison-shopping site that pits online retailers against each other to find you the best book deal. It will also tell you who will give you the best price when it’s time to sell a book back at the end of the semester.
This article was originally published on Aug 4, 2022, and was updated on Aug. 4, 2023 to reflect current Lifehacker style and include a March 2023 legal ruling regarding online “open libraries.”