Buying Textbooks at UIC – the Quick and Cheap Way

Buying textbooks can be a dreaded event for students with the average cost of books and supplies estimated at $1,100 per year. If you are willing to plan early and put a little work in, the cost to purchase your books can be significantly reduced.

Here’s a simple strategy for purchasing your books.

1. UIC makes it extremely easy to determine the books you need for all your classes. Simply navigate to: http://www.uic.edu/depts/oar/current_students/textbooks/allcrncomplete_fall13.htm. Here you will find a list of all the books that professors have ordered for each class.
2. You will notice that each listing provides the following information for each book:
   Course:
   CRN:
   Required / Optional
   Author
   Title
   New Price
   Used Price
   ISBN
3. Make a note of whether the book is required or optional and the ISBN number. The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique number that identifies every book. Each book, even if it has a different edition will have a unique number. This makes it easy to identify the exact books you need.
4. Once you have the ISBN numbers for all the books you need go to www.bigwords.com. This website is like the Priceline for textbooks. Simply enter the ISBN number in the search box and click on “Start Price Comparison.” The website will scour over 150 sites including Amazon.com and other online bookstores for the best price. It can also find the best combination of books at each store to determine your best price if you wish to get them all at one location instead of purchasing from different sites.
5. As an example let’s take a look at ISBN: 9780073532387, which is the Calculus for Business textbook required for the MATH 165 class:
   The UIC bookstore has it listed at $140 new and $85 used. A bigwords.com search shows several different options including a rental from bookrenter.com for $36.13. If you wish to purchase it, there is also an option from TextbooksRUs for $45.40 shipped. This represents an over 50 percent discount.
6. Sometimes, certain online stores will carry the international edition, which in many cases is almost identical but may have a softcover instead of a hardcover. As long as the ISBN is the same, it is the same book.
7. If you order your books early, you can get them even before school starts on August 26. Even if you get to it later, most professors will let you get by the first week without a textbook giving you enough time to get them shipped to you.
8. After you are done with the book at the end of the semester, you can sell it online on Amazon.com for close to what you purchased it for. After accounting for fees, packing materials and shipping you could quite easily recover $32 from a book you purchased for $45. This would reduce your overall spending on a $140 book to about $13.
9. Follow this strategy for all your books and you could be spending less than $100 on books each semester.