Borrow the Book.

Check out free textbooks from the campus library. but you have to move fast. Ask roommates, dorm buddies and Facebook friends who took the same course last year. Borrow the book or negotiate a better-than-online price.

Share the Book.

Share a copy of the book with a roommate, friend or trusted member of your study group. Upside? The cost is halved. Downside? Less reliable access to the book. Some colleges have student-run or informal book exchanges”. Check Facebook or the college intranet.

Recycle an Older Edition.

Professors typically list the most recent edition of a book on the syllabus, but unless the book's subject covers cutting-edge, soon rendered obsolete material, it's fine to use an olderedition of the book. Benefit? You'll find better deals on older books. Challenge? Pages 120-123 are now on pages 124-127, and doing specific assignments from a specific page may be problematic. You may need to double check assignments with a classmate who has the current edition.