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Money Spent on Books for College

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#1

How much money will I be expected to fork over for 4, 12 credits total, classes. They are:

  1. Intro to Law
  2. Into to sociology
  3. Fundamentals of Earth science
  4. Legal research I

Before this I did the University of Phoenix Online route. That was OK but as I went further with the program I found out that employers do not like online only schools. I applied at a private university and got accepted NONE of my credits from the online only school transferred but I expected that. Also I still plan to work 35-40 hours a week will it be hard to keep up with my classes? Has anyone here gone back to college well after they graduated from high school? How did you deal with this?

#2

say 1k? a little less or a little more.

#3

a fuckload.

lol dude i think i get like 5 hundo a semester from the army for books and i don’t think it covered it all

always buy used books. and on’t buy them from the store, join the network of whatever school u go to and buy it from a student

#4

400-600 is my guess Get the book’s identifcation number and buy them online. Some books will be ok to buy used, others wont.

#5

For those books I would say 500 USD or less, buy them online and you can save easily 25-30% on NEW books. More so if you’re willing to go the used route.

#6

Working full time and school full time sounds like a hell of a time to me. Depending on your scholastic aptitude, it may be possible but I think you’re setting yourself up for disaster. I’d mess around with less than a full course load until you get situated a bit, then go from there.

If you search on amazon for used books, you can find them cheap. I got a book last quarter for $35 w/ shipping that was in the book store used at $120. It was in excellent condition, too.

Online enrollments are at an all time high, but people really don’t know they are worthless degrees and most serious employers will probably take you less than seriously, if you get an interview at all.

#7

You can acquire a lot of those intro class books in A LOT of places, look around. I know an chick that found some of the books that were one edition out of what the class was using out by the trash.

The older editions usually work just find as long as they’re only like 1 edition behind.

Of course, you usually only start to figure some of that shit out by the time you’re about to graduate, but such is life.

#8

Buy your books online. There are plenty of good sites that allow students to sell books, or allow you to buy used books from companies, take advantage of those. I started doing that my junior and senior year and was able to get books that would have cost hundreds, for $10-$30 each. Just check with your teachers on what books you will need and make sure to order them the first week of class and you will be good to go.

Also, if you really have your s*** together you can go to the finals of the classes that you will be taking next quarter/semester with a couple $10-$20 bills and just buy the books right off of the kids as the finish their finals. It might be a pain in the a**, but it is an extremely easy/fast way to save hundreds of dollars. I did that a couple times, sometimes buying multiple copies of the books, then just selling them to kids in my class the next quarter for $20-$40 more.

#9

As everyone else said, buy your books online. Amazon.com is good, and I personally used abebooks.com a LOT while I was an undergrad. For all 4 classes you might be able to skate by with less than 150 spent.

Good luck with the 12 credits and full time job thing. I know of quite a few people who have done it, and from what I can gather it’s pretty stressful.

#10

Intro classes always cost a lot…would guess 300-400 on just those two classes.

#11

I get 100% Tuition assistance, but have to come out of pocket for books. The book for my Calc class was 250, very used.

#12

download them for free btjunkie.org is good for books

#13

ya you probably won’t even use books that much if you pay attention in class, I would download or get book out on loan at libby. Lot of times you don’t even need the required text, any text on subject is usually good enough, particularly for intro classes

#14

$400-700. It’s your net outlay that’s more important. I usually profit off my books, but coming close to breaking even isn’t bad at all.

#15

There’s some website that you can rent textbooks for the semester for like 20 bucks per book.

I forget the site, though. Sorry.

#16

[quote]rickbenn wrote:
How much money will I be expected to fork over for 4, 12 credits total, classes. They are:

  1. Intro to Law
  2. Into to sociology
  3. Fundamentals of Earth science
  4. Legal research I

Before this I did the University of Phoenix Online route. That was OK but as I went further with the program I found out that employers do not like online only schools. I applied at a private university and got accepted NONE of my credits from the online only school transferred but I expected that. Also I still plan to work 35-40 hours a week will it be hard to keep up with my classes? Has anyone here gone back to college well after they graduated from high school? How did you deal with this?[/quote]

Buy the ones that are absolutely necessary online - the rest just - get the books on reserve at the university library, or photocopy the necessary reading.

Advanced planning requires you already know what your classes will be in your next term - see if the teacher will be using the same edition -> if so ask current students of the course to sell you their book and notes for more then what book buy back will give them. 30%-40% of the text book price anyone will jump at. The school bookstore if THEY do buy them back will give you 15-25%

What you should also do is figure out how much is based on the book and whether you need the book to excel in the course. It depends on the professor, so go from there. Another thing you should do is socialize with other members in your classes and maybe they will have prior notes or know how to satisfy the teacher’s requirements. Finally you can always just point blank ask the teacher if you can get an A without purchasing the book. Reviewing the syllabus and term schedule for each course will give you a better idea of how the class has been designed for the term you are taking.

The poster below me has a good suggestion. If you use those teacher office hours - you’ll find that more then half the time they won’t have anyone to talk to. You can quiz them and dig for more information on the lecture or course. Also you can ask them for advice and tips on how to prepare and what to do.

If you do choose not to get books for one of these courses, make sure you at least utilize the book reserve at the campus library to write notes and study, or photocopy the necessary material. Also you’ll be relying on in-class lecture so you will want to pay attention, ask questions & write good notes, and also if you missed anything - have it repeated or have the teacher rephrase it in a way that is more understandable.

Most teachers like having a student that participates - as long as your not trying to challenge their authority or talk about politics… religion etc

#17

Also it might be a long shot but you can always go into your teachers office hours before class starts or soon after and strike up a conversation. When you feel comfortable bring up the price of text books. The book companies usually give professors free text books every quarter, and often they will have extras, older versions, or want to use their old books. I got a few free books this way.

#18

Not sure how much it is over there, but books are very expensive here. To buy them new it would have cost me around £400 for economics. Buying from students or ex students is a great way to save money. Used books are so much cheaper than buying them new from the store.