The College Solutions Blog

August 17, 2010

It’s back-to-school season, which means college students are on the prowl for cheap textbooks. The average college student spends more than $1,100 a year on college textbooks. With textbook prices rising twice as fast as inflation during the past 20 years, I’d sure be looking for cheap textbooks if I was a student. There are more options than ever to...

May 14, 2010

What are the most expensive textbooks in America? This week I provided the answer. At my other college blog over at CBSMoneyWatch, I wrote a post that contained the names of the 12 most expensive college textbooks. The most expensive one — Acta  Philosophorum The First Journal of Philosophy  – cost $1,450 retail. The next priciest textbook is Encyclopedia of...

December 3, 2009

Do you have some used college textbooks you’d like to get rid of? You might want to check with Amazon. The online bookseller rolled out a new program today to entice college students to trade in their textbooks. The trade-in program is simple. You can check to see if Amazon will buy your used textbook and what price it is...

July 7, 2009

Here’s a way to find cheap college textbooks: rent them. This seems so logical, but it’s taken an awfully long time for the idea of renting used college textbooks to take root. At least a couple of companies are now renting cheap college textbooks to students who are eager to shrink their book tab. A story in The New York...

May 12, 2009

You don’t need to read this blog post to know that the prices of college textbooks are obscene. Amazon.com, however, is aiming to change this. I wrote a post about Amazon’s efforts to crack the electronic textbook market with its launch of the Kindle DX at my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch.com. On that post I also explain why  college...

January 19, 2009

My daughter called me yesterday to complain about the cost of her college textbooks. One of Caitlin’s upper level Spanish books was going to cost her close to $200. She was thrilled, however, when she found a used older textbook edition — missing the CD — for a mere $15 online. Ironically, it’s the frugality of students like Caitlin which...