How to save on textbooks: free, rented and cheaper options
Before you buy, check three free options: your course may use a free open textbook, your library may have it on reserve, and if your school bills books with tuition you have a federal right to opt out and buy them yourself. If you do pay, rent for one-semester books, use the ISBN to buy the exact edition anywhere (used copies cost less, and your instructor may allow an older edition), and sell back at the end of the term.
Start with free: open textbooks
OpenStax, a nonprofit initiative of Rice University, publishes free, peer-reviewed textbooks for intro courses in business, computer science, math, nursing, science, social sciences and more (Calculus, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, U.S. History, Economics and Statistics among them). Every book is free to read online or download as a PDF, and you can order a low-cost print copy.
The Open Textbook Library, run by the Open Education Network at the University of Minnesota, lists about 1,887 open textbooks you can download and print for free. Ask your instructor whether an open textbook covers the course.
Borrow it: course reserves and the library
Instructors often put the required textbook on course reserve at the library, where you can borrow it free for a few hours. Loans are short and late fees can be steep (Ohio State's library says $5 an hour or more), so many students scan just the chapters they need.
Some libraries lend textbooks for the whole semester or request them from partner libraries through interlibrary loan; others won't request textbooks at all (Rutgers, for example). Check your own library's page.
Books billed with your tuition? You can opt out
Some colleges add course materials to your tuition bill (often called "inclusive access"). Federal rules let them do that only if the price is below market rates, the materials arrive by the seventh day of the term, and you can opt out and buy your books yourself. The only exceptions are materials not available anywhere else, or a documented health or safety reason.
The Education Department stopped a planned rewrite of these rules in December 2024, so they still apply, and it said opt-out policies must be clearly communicated and actionable. Look for the opt-out deadline in your bursar or bookstore emails.
StudentAid.gov: getting your aid and buying books ↗ · The rule: 34 CFR 668.164 ↗
Use your financial aid for books
If your aid will be more than your tuition and fees, your school must give you a way to get books and supplies by the seventh day of the term, often a bookstore voucher. Ask your financial aid office how it works at your school.
Any aid left over after school charges must be paid to you within 14 days unless you tell the school to hold it, and you can spend it on books wherever they're cheapest. A Pell Grant can be paid toward school costs, to you directly, or both.
Buy the exact edition anywhere
Federal law requires colleges to list the ISBN and retail price of required and recommended textbooks in the online course schedule, so you can look up the exact edition before the term starts. Publishers that bundle a textbook with extras must also sell the textbook and each extra separately.
Some campus bookstores match lower prices. The University of Houston's store, for example, matches Amazon and Barnes & Noble on the same ISBN, with limits, so ask your bookstore before you buy.
Buy used, or ask about an older edition
A used copy of the same ISBN, from your campus bookstore's used stock or an online seller, costs less than new, though it may have someone else's highlighting in it. The catch is online homework: an access code usually comes only with a new book, and codes can't be bought used or rented, so check whether your course needs one before you buy used. If it does, compare the new bundle against a used book plus a code bought on its own.
Older editions are often cheaper, but they can differ in page numbers, chapters and homework problems. Ask your instructor before you buy whether an earlier edition is OK for the course, and which chapters changed.
Example: University of South Florida Bookstore on used books ↗ · Example: Troy University on access codes with used books ↗ · Example: University of Northern Colorado on asking about older editions ↗ · Example: James Madison University on how editions differ ↗
Renting and digital textbooks
Rental options have changed. Amazon no longer rents print textbooks and stopped new digital textbook rentals on July 1, 2025. Chegg no longer rents or sells textbooks itself: its textbook search now sends you to Valore, which compares rental and purchase prices from several sellers.
VitalSource rents eTextbooks for set periods (usually 60, 90, 120 or 180 days), which costs less than buying when you only need a book for one term. Access ends automatically when the rental does. Check whether your school already gives you access through a course materials program before paying.
Study help
Not textbooks, but often bought alongside them.
Chegg Study- Perlego: There's no student discount you can claim directly from Perlego, which says its prices already suit students. A 25% off for 4 months code is available only through a separate third-party student platform.
Sell it back
Campus bookstores buy textbooks back, usually paying the most at the end of each semester; at other times you get wholesale value. Sell early (buyback is first come, first served, and you'll get less once a new edition is out), and bring every piece if the book came in a bundle.
Amazon Trade-In no longer takes textbooks; it now covers devices and electronics.
Questions
- Can I opt out of textbooks included in my tuition?
- Yes, in almost every case. Federal rules require a college that bills books with tuition to let you opt out and buy them yourself, unless the materials aren't available anywhere else or there's a documented health or safety reason.
- Does Amazon still rent textbooks?
- No. Amazon no longer rents print textbooks, and it stopped new digital textbook rentals on July 1, 2025.
- Can I use an older edition of my textbook?
- Often, but ask your instructor first. Older editions are often cheaper, but page numbers, chapters and homework problems can change between editions. If the course uses online homework, check whether you need an access code, since codes can't be bought used.
- Can I use financial aid to buy textbooks?
- Yes. If your aid is more than your tuition and fees, your school must give you a way to get books by the seventh day of the term, and leftover aid paid to you can be spent on books anywhere.
We checked these facts on each source's own page (the publishers and stores, the libraries named as examples, StudentAid.gov and the federal rules) on the date above. Store and library policies change, so check before you buy. Find scholarships and grants you qualify for.