But what about the textbooks?

Okay. You have done your due diligence and you have found the cheapest tuition (or you have found a way to avoid tuition altogether!). You are feeling good about yourself and you decide you should go ahead and purchase your textbooks.

Oh my gosh!!!

Suddenly, you discover that the textbooks are going to cost you more than the actual classes. Hard to believe? Given that the cheapest textbooks seem to be about $75, it's not all that hard to believe.

How do you get past this mess? To start with, never buy your textbooks from the school if you can at all avoid it. Any bookstore with a building is going to have books that cost more. Staffs need to be larger. Lights need to be kept on.

No, I say no. Instead, you have several options:

1. If you want new books, go to Amazon.co.uk and see if they have the book available. These books, called gray market books, are often significantly cheaper even if you have to pay for shipping to the U.S. Guess what? These books often start out in the U.S., are shipped to the United Kingdom, and then come back here when you buy them. Why are they cheaper? British students will not pay the equivalent of $100 for a book. There are just too many cheaper options for them.
2. Try one of the online stores like eCampus.com. Yes, that is their search box off to the right and, yes, I make a tiny bit if you buy from them. So buy elsewhere or try them. Either is fine with me. The important thing to realize is that there are online bookstores besides Amazon. However, I can tell you that eCampus is a good service and I have used them in the past (and will use them again, I am sure).
3. Buy from Amazon.com, but buy used. Often the books have been hardly touched.
4. Try the price comparison websites like AddAll.com, BooksPrice.com, and BookFinder.com. Be careful to cost compare. Sometimes the prices found are actually more than if you just picked it up from Amazon.

While these are starting points, you would do well not to do what is easiest. You have been so smart in deciding to spend less on college. Don't blow those savings on books!