I know the struggle and frustration that comes with having to pay for your tuition and fees, your housing, your meal plan, necessities, and on top of that textbooks for school! Only if textbooks and materials needed for class were included in the tuition and fees huh? However, there are plenty of ways to find affordable, if not free textbooks for your classes.

First and most commonly to get textbooks is from UH Mānoa’s own bookstore. With buying/renting from the campus store, they ensure that you get the right book, instant pick up, and easy returns. When searching for textbooks on their website: https://www.bookstore.hawaii.edu/manoa/, they also do price comparisons from other suppliers to help you get the best deal when making your purchase! At the end of each semester, the campus store does textbook buybacks – which is an opportunity for students to sell back textbooks that they no longer need or want to keep for future reference (note that not all textbooks may be bought back).

Amazon is another great and common resource to find textbooks! I’ve purchased my textbooks from here a couple times and have had good experiences with it. I find that prices for textbooks on Amazon are much more affordable and cost friendly. I would often purchase textbooks that are used, but in good condition, and some Amazon suppliers even offer textbook rentals which helps to save a lot of money too!

Here’s a big hack that I discovered my Junior year – accessibility to free online textbooks through UH Mānoa’s library website! This has by far been the best resource in saving money on textbooks! All I do is search the required textbook title on the library website, and see if there are available online versions. Many that I’ve found don’t require anything in order to have access, while others just require UH login information. So goooood!

Some other hacks to finding affordable textbooks:

• I’ve seen other universities that have a Facebook page made for students to offer good deals to purchase or swap textbooks with one another.
• Ask your friends/classmates/friends of friends, who have the taken classes you’re going to take and if they have the textbooks! Especially for the general education classes (because they’re required), odds are they have the resources or know where to get good deals. If you want to, ask your friends/classmates/friends of friends if they’ll be taking classes you’ve already taken and offer your resources too!

Tip: I also suggest waiting and not buying required course materials until you see how the class goes – of course, unless your teacher says you really do need to get them. I’ve been in many classes where on the syllabus the course requires materials, but we don’t even end up using them! Maybe dropping the class(es) could be a possibility if you don’t like it, then you’re stuck with the textbook – many uncertainties when it comes with buying textbooks, but now at least you have lots of options!