Selling books back to college bookstore

[tinnean]

It's been a long time since college, and the books were a good deal cheaper back then. (although it didn't feel that way at the time.) I've googled this, and it seems all the sites are for online selling and require an ISBN number. I've also looked up the cost of buying the books from the bookstore with no luck

Comments

[mondler_4ever]

That sounds about right. I'm a college junior, so I've been selling back books for about 3 years. I know that some books I can't sell back because they were made specifically for my school's curriculum. Also, I think I paid about 600 for my books and got back around 100 dollars. So 90 isn't too far off.

[tinnean]

I'm glad to know I'm not too far off. Of course then I realized it was $1000 for the year, not the semester, so we're talking more like $90 back on $500.

Thanks very much! (and good luck!)

[midnightisclose]

While I've never spent $1000 on textbooks, I've heard of it happening, especially if they're newer editions of science books. Sadly, I do think $90 for that would be about right.

[tinnean]

It hurts, doesn't it? Thanks so much for responding!

[sidgwick]

Yes, this is entirely feasible. The last time I actually looked into selling my books back to the college store I would have gotten $15 back on $200 worth of books--largely due to the changing of editions. It partly depends on the school though. At my University books sold back at higher prices which I believe reflected a certain stability in the choice of books. At my community college the books were different almost every semester, math books varied widely from instructor to instructor within the same course which I believe is part of what caused the depressed prices for resale.

[tinnean]

It's depressing, isn't it? I didn't expect to sell back the workbooks, but I wound up with a number of textbooks which were useless because of new editions.

This is a fictional college, but I checked out Nassau Community College up in NY just to see what the figures were, and for a four year program, books and supplies ran over $6000.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

[borg_princess]

he couldn't sell back some of the books because the instructors were using another book for the next semesterThat is TOTALLY the case IRL, ugh. A lot of times, it'd be the same damn book, only 'edition 2/3/4/etc'. Basically, they'd change the cover and rearrange chapters and then claim it's a whole new book, smh. >:[ I'd use the older editions from the library and it'd be the same as the course material anyway

[tinnean]

I didn't even know using older editions from the library was an option. And it's been so many years since I was in college that I don't remember the bookstore's policy about the number of books they'd take back. Since it was a state university, they tried to keep things fairly reasonable, but costs still got a bit out of hand. I tried to buy used books, but when the prof was going with a new edition, there wasn't any choice.

This is actually just a throw away line. My character is checking his wallet to see if he has enough for a taxi, and mentions 4 twenties, a ten and three singles, noting this was what he got for selling his books. And I realized that the $1000 was for an entire year, not a single semester, so we're looking at probably $500. In this case, it seems he's done really well getting $90 back.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer. The cost of eduction is enough to make the Baby Jesus weep.

[dinogrrl]

For the initial $1000, if he got $90 from the books he could sell back, he's doing pretty well. The $1000 for books alone seems a tad high to me, but I could believe it if he has a heavy textbook load and buys them all from the college bookstore.

And not being able to sell back a textbook because it's being changed next year is definitely a common issue. My first college changed books in a math class three semesters in a row. Oh, what fun that was.

[tinnean]

I realized after I'd posted this that the cost I'd quoted was for an entire year, (it was actually about $1500 for books and supplies, and I'm hoping $250/semester for supplies is acceptable) so if we're looking at $500/semester, and taking into consideration the books he wouldn't be able to return, then maybe by saying he got $90, readers won't jump all over me and call me an idiot.

Thanks so much!

[dinogrrl]

That sounds a lot closer to what I'm familiar with!