Question for Parents of College Students

[Michael]

Kennesaw has the book ISBN's online. There's a federal requirement that colleges provide this information early (I don't know exactly how long in advance). At our college, we turned in our fall book orders about 2 weeks ago and they are online. The trick is figuring out how to get to the information.

For Kennesaw, here is the link to choose departments for the classes your son will be taking. From here, choose the individual courses and sections and the book title, author and ISBN will appear: http://bookstore.kennesaw.edu/SelectTerm...rm=Fall+12&trmID=366

For example, here are the books required for BIOL 2107, section 1 for Fall, 2012: http://bookstore.kennesaw.edu/CourseMaterials.aspx

We were able to get our daughter's college and law school books much cheaper by buying in advance.

[graylocks]

Michael wrote:
Kennesaw has the book ISBN's online. There's a federal requirement that colleges provide this information early (I don't know exactly how long in advance). At our college, we turned in our fall book orders about 2 weeks ago and they are online. The trick is figuring out how to get to the information.

For Kennesaw, here is the link to choose departments for the classes your son will be taking. From here, choose the individual courses and sections and the book title, author and ISBN will appear: http://bookstore.kennesaw.edu/SelectTerm...rm=Fall+12&trmID=366

For example, here are the books required for BIOL 2107, section 1 for Fall, 2012: http://bookstore.kennesaw.edu/CourseMaterials.aspx

We were able to get our daughter's college and law school books much cheaper by buying in advance.

THANK YOU! my son is registering for classes June 8 so we'll definitely have time to budget shop with this infomation!

[Lemon Drop]

Thanks Michael that's a great tip!

[Grateful11]

We were able to save 50-75% by buying International Editions on eBay with most books for our sons.
They are the same except the cover. The ones that came direct from overseas got here faster than the
ones shipped from US Sellers. As our oldest got further along we had to buy a few books from the
college book store, couldn't find them anywhere else. Some Professors seem to have a nasty habit of
changing books every year.

[bazookaman]

billb wrote:
$1500 for books alone seems high, but start throwing some arts supplies ( sculpting and photography especially ) and lab fees into category and you can hit $1500 fairly quick.

Yeah. When i was in school. I had to buy all the books PLUS frickin' art supplies. OMG! That crap was expensive.

[Numo]

We made a deal with our kids: they can keep the money they earn with their work-study jobs if they pay for all other expenses except tuition, room and board, including books. Boy, did they get good at finding used and bargin-priced textbooks. They pay about $500/year for books, which is half of what their college recommends they plan for.

[Ombligo]

Another trick is to go to the last time the class meets, stand outside the classroom and hold up 1/3rd the book price in cash. A student will sell you their copy. It is less than most university bookstores get for used copies and slightly more than they pay to buy used copies. Win-Win

[JoeH]

For the area of study your son thinks he is going into, $1500 is on the high side. But, as soon as you start looking at texts in the sciences and math the prices go right up. As mentioned there are options, how well they work is going to depend on how well your son uses them. In any case, plan on at least $500 a semester, and if there are savings they can help out with other unexpected expenses. Some money can be recovered by selling off used texts, again that is going to depend on how organized your son is at getting that done.

One option not mentioned is that many college libraries will have books on course reserves. This can include texts. Depending on the material and how he needs to use it, this can substitute for purchasing a text. It does take planning and discipline on his part, if he always showed up the night before an exam expecting to borrow the text he might not find one available to borrow.

As for knowing what books a course will require far enough in advance to order them from lower cost alternatives, within the last few years a law or regulation was put in place that requires listing required texts in the course description. This was implemented in all the course descriptions at the university I work at. An example is this from a math course taught this Spring(most of the Fall text requirements have not been posted yet):

Textbook/Other Materials

Special Instructions - Price is on-line from publisher. Hybrid Edition is print + eBook & includes multi-semester access to required WebAssign on-line homework system. (For just 2 semesters, Math 131-132, single-variable-only version is available on-line at $120.49.)

Book

Status - Required

Mathematics - Calculus: Early Transcendentals, Hyb, Author: James Stewart, Publisher: Cengage, Edition: 7, Year Published: 2012, Price: 138.99 USD

ISBN: 9781111426682

Other Materials

Status - Required

WebAssign on-line homework system, Author: WebAssign, Publisher: webassign.net

Status - Recommended

graphing scientific calculator, e.g., TI-89, Publisher: Texas Instruments

As you can see, price and ISBN is listed. One thing to watch out for is required on-line access. This is not included with purchases of used texts, purchasing it can raise the price of a used text to that of buying a new one. Also additional supplies can include the need to buy equipment such as calculators, and in the case of many courses here at the university, a "clicker" for use in lecture courses and some exams. Fortunately one clicker is good for all courses that require them, except here some students have needed two different ones this past year as the campus was in the process of changing vendors.

Another equipment expense I have seen is for video. Some courses here have requirements for video presentations. Most can't be filled by low end video from a phone, etc. Here one source of equipment is a student organization that rents camcorders, tripods, mic's and the like to fellow students. Tapes or SD cards are the responsibility of the user. The library also lends a limited amount of video equipment as well. Again, expendable supplies are not provided.

Hope some of this helps. I am basing my comments on having a couple sons of college age, and having worked at a university for over 25 years and seeing how students have dealt with texts.

[graylocks]

Kennesaw has the book ISBN's online. There's a federal requirement that colleges provide this information early (I don't know exactly how long in advance). At our college, we turned in our fall book orders about 2 weeks ago and they are online. The trick is figuring out how to get to the information.

For Kennesaw, here is the link to choose departments for the classes your son will be taking. From here, choose the individual courses and sections and the book title, author and ISBN will appear: http://bookstore.kennesaw.edu/SelectTerm...rm=Fall+12&trmID=366

wow. finally had a chance to explore that link. not only does the Kennesaw bookstore give you their new and used price but they list the prices at online places like Amazon and AbeBooks. very cool that they do that!

[JoeH]

Wow too! Looks like Kennesaw still operates their own bookstore. Our campus, like so many others around the country, contracted that out to a private company about a dozen years ago. I have no illusion that they would post anything about competitors prices on their website. In fact, their full list pricing on textbooks replaced the campus run store's fixed markup over wholesale to cover operational expenses. Any surplus was turned over to support student activities on the campus.