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SlugBooks Review

June 28, 2017 By Mary Newton Leave a Comment

It is no secret that textbooks are expensive. Every college student’s wallet suffers when the beginning of the semester – and book buying time – comes around. Fortunately, SlugBooks offers a simple, stress-free way to find the lowest available cost for your textbook.

How SlugBooks Works

SlugBooks’ methods are straightforward: simply type in your textbook’s ISBN, and you will receive the book’s list price alongside the lowest prices available from a variety of vendors. These vendors – Amazon, Chegg, etc. – partner with SlugBooks to make these price readings available. Prices are shown for purchases and rentals, with an additional unmarked Student Exchange option.

As you search for books, SlugBooks will keep your books in a list. This way, you can see your whole list of textbooks at once. In case you are worried about the website keeping a cache, it also provides an option to clear your search history.

In addition, if you have a textbook that you want to sell, SlugBooks is one of many sites that gives you that ability. The textbook search functions the same way, and selecting the Sell It option will link you to three online buyback sites – also SlugBooks partners – with estimated buyback rates. If you would rather not sell to an online buyback site, you can instead link to the SlugBooks Student Exchange with your Facebook account to list your copy for purchase. This feature is particularly useful when looking for books that are nearby and readily available, as the Exchange centers on university location.

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SlugBooks Positives

The biggest positive of the SlugBooks system is the list price. This gives you a tangible benchmark for evaluating seller prices. For example, if the list price of a book is $21.95, you do not want to buy a used copy from your school for $32.64. This way, you are not just selecting the lowest price, but you are understanding the value of the book itself.

A second positive is the aforementioned Student Exchange. Many times, schools will refuse to buy back books for entry-level courses, yet makes every student purchase a new copy of the textbook. By participating in the Student Exchange, you can easily connect to incoming students at your school who need the same textbook for the same course.

Finally, SlugBooks almost always provides lower prices than schools. As an example, I selected three textbooks for a Medieval History course at Southern New Hampshire University. The three books at their lowest available prices at the school – all used rentals – totaled $25.79. Conversely, at their lowest available price in SlugBooks’ listings, all three books were available for used purchase totaling $21.17. While those savings only total $4.62, savings like this add up as you purchase more and more textbooks. The more expensive the textbook is at list price, the higher a chance your savings will be more obvious.

SlugBooks Negatives

While SlugBooks offers a wealth of information, it also has its drawbacks. The Student Exchange can be limited for smaller or private schools. If there are no sellers at your university, chances are it will not show up on the list at all.

Furthermore, since SlugBooks partners with vendors, its scope is still limited. Sites such as Half.com and Thriftbooks could have lower prices for the books you want, but SlugBooks does not show their prices. This means that, while SlugBooks is a fantastic one-stop site for price comparisons, finding the absolute lowest price available might take further research.

SlugBooks also lists prices from third party sellers via Amazon. While this is most effective in getting you the lowest price possible, it also increases your chance of purchasing a book from a distant location. If you choose to purchase from third party sellers, you may not get your textbook as quickly. All this requires is a bit of extra attention in order to avoid long shipping times.

The final and greatest drawback of SlugBooks is that their prices do not account for shipping and handling fees. While a book may be $10 from your school and $8 from an Amazon seller, that seller might charge $3 for shipping, while the school bookstore will allow free pickup on campus. Before buying a book online at a discounted price, make sure you know the company’s shipping fees. Otherwise, you are not saving money at all.

Conclusion

SlugBooks is a powerful price comparison tool that works with the sole purpose of saving people money. It is consistent, effective, and useful. While it may take some extra work to ensure you are getting the best possible price, its results are always trustworthy, high-quality, and accurate. It is one of the best and most user-friendly textbook comparison tools out there.

Photos: Entrepreneur and Danny Saucedo

Why Does College Cost So Much?

October 31, 2008 By Joe Morgan 6 Comments

Consider that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the 20 years from 1985 to 2005 energy costs have risen 108%, Medical costs 251%, and college costs increased 439% — but a college degree is worth it, right?

Not necessarily. While having a college degree does open doors, and increase the odds of earning a top salary in a given field, there is no direct correlation to tuition costs and benefit.

It’s one thing to hike tuition to open up a new career offering or bring more (or better) faculty on board. Sadly, that’s not where the bulk of the tuition hikes are going. Where does the money go? In a word, perks.

Princeton recently built a $136 million student residency, and apparently spared little or no expense. Do college students really need triple-glazed mahogany casement windows of leaded glass in each dorm room? Or hot tubs large enough for 15 students, as Boston University has recently added?

It’s one thing for Ivy league universities to get billionaire donors to fund such decadence, but it’s even creeping down to State Universities. It may not be so in your face decadent, but it’s there. Many schools now feature multiple eateries with a choice of ethnic and organic foods, and massive fitness and recreation centers. And wouldn’t those donations from billionaire benefactors be better spent on the quality of the student’s education?

No free market at work

In free markets, frugal consumers eventually hit a point of pain after which they will spend no more money for the given product or service, and change their consumption habits. We see this now with the price of oil and gasoline. But in the realm of higher education, free market logic does not apply. Instead, universities are free to raise their tuition with impunity – in fact they are rewarded for doing so.

Rewards for tuition hikes

There are two basic reasons colleges raise the tuition costs: perception and ranking.

The perception is that higher cost equals higher quality. We’ve all heard that “you get what you pay for.” I happen to believe that this is only true up to a point, and we have past that point long ago with college education. But my belief doesn’t change the reality of perception. Studies confirm that after colleges raise the tuition, the number of applicants also rises.

The second reason, ranking, comes from the all important U. S. News & World Report College Rankings and Reviews. This has long been the yardstick by which higher education is measured. The problem is that much of the measurement is based upon the number of applicants that get rejected by the college. As stated above, as schools raise their tuition costs, the number of applicants also rises. Since the school has done nothing to accommodate this new influx of applicants, they will end up turning a higher percentage away, and thus appear more elite in their acceptance.

What you can do about it

Scholarships. Scholarships are great, if you qualify. Just don’t get scammed by anyone selling scholarship lists. The information is free, and you may have to do some digging, but it is unnecessary to pay to find a scholarship.
Federal and state grants. Free money is always welcome, right? Most high school grads never even bother to fill out the paperwork to apply for a grant. That’s good news for those that do, since there’s more money available for those that apply.
Start closer to home. 2 year, community college is an excellent cost saving option for many degrees. Every student has to fulfill basic levels of English, Math, Science and History. Why pay full price for the basics?
Use a 529 or a coverdell education savings account. Both of these accounts are tax deferred on withdrawals, but differ slightly in contribution rules.
Write your representative. Grants and scholarships are nice, but don’t do anything to fix runaway tuition costs. This is due to the fact that universities charge exorbitant amounts of money because they can. Scholarships, grants and tax credits may lower an individual’s cost in the short term, but those offsets become factored into the tuition costs and end up driving prices up in the long run.

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the non-profit tax status of many Universities.

Ways to Save for your Children’s Futures

January 20, 2008 By Ann Hartter 21 Comments

I know many kids who grow up and go to college on their own dime, spending all their own hard earned cash for the next twenty years getting out of that debt. I also know of several kids who had a stockpile of cash they could use for tuition, even if they skipped a couple of years after high school, or even waited until adulthood. Then there are the fortunate few who never even pay for their own doctorate.

In any case, parents frequently feel they could do more for their children’s futures. The obviously easy way is to open trust funds and fill them with assortments of investments and set them up securely so that they can grow steadily for the next 18 years. Oh, wait. That’s not easy. Okay, so the easy way is to get a screaming good job and make tons of money so that when the time comes, $30,000 a year is a mere fraction of your income. Wait, that one isn’t easy either. Fine then. Remodel your home and add a few bathrooms so when the time comes you get greater value from that second mortgage and…ugh.

To be honest, there is no catch-all easy and complete one way to save money for your kids. What you must do is accumulate from several sources, including from your own income. Make money now, save for later.

I’ve heard of a few programs that work pretty well; you can open a 529 account, the money which can be transferred to private schools (some in part) and to public schools around the country, possibly internationally. You can find more information at SavingforCollege.com, but do make sure you do some of your own research, talk to your tax professional, and talk to a college financial aid office (any will do).

But apart from the institutionalized options, there are many things you can do as an individual.

Allow family members to open savings accounts jointly with your children’s names. If you have a parent willing and able to save some money for you, let them. Go with them to open the account, but don’t put your name on it. Allow that account to be their business, not yours. Now the normal response would be to count on this money, but don’t. Don’t count it. When the time comes, if they’ve spent all the money, it’s no skin off your nose, but if it’s there, better for your kids.

Request savings bonds instead of gift cards for your kids for holidays. These can just sit in a safe and make money. You can learn more about these at TreasuryDirect.com, but again, make it your business to research things first.

Encourage your children to enter scholarship contests or other contests with cash rewards, and consider entering some yourself. Grace Tierney with Writers On-Line has listed some resources of the free variety, though others require entrance fees. Inventor Spot keeps a calendar and forum discussing invention, science, and engineering contests. Photo contests are prevalent, but if you’re looking for a place to start you can go to International Photography Awards or Kodak. If you win some cash, stash it in an interest-bearing account or buy CDs, or put it in that 529.

Collect your loose change once and a while and put it in savings for your kids. The thing about loose change is that it has been forgotten and ignored, so it doesn’t impact your budget. It’s like the bank that rounds up your change and puts it in savings. You’re doing the same with your cash. Pennies are only worth one cent until they gang up.

Replace a couple of your bills and put the saved expense into savings. If you’ve been budgeting for the past few years for a safety deposit box at the bank, consider buying a fire-proof safe and putting the rental fee into a savings account instead. Cancel the magazine subscription you don’t read every issue of and read it from the library or online instead, and put the subscription fee into savings. The idea is when looking at your budget for extra money for your kids’ savings, you take things you have already made concessions for and replace that cost with something more important and more utilitarian. Never think: “That’s only fifteen dollars a year.” Think instead: “That’s an extra dollar a month to the future fund.”

Look differently. Try college programs like Disney, UPromsie (with rebates that can be redeemed for cash), or the Military(more here).

And finally, when it comes time for the college search, . Some schools have even made work study a major portion of their curriculum, like College of the Ozarks. To get these benefits, encourage your children to work while in high school, explore their own avenues, and do well in school. Remind them, in any case, that their education is their own, and your money and efforts are a gift of aid, not a free ride. You don’t have to put a hole in your pocket to provide the best for your kids. You can do some little things and let your children life take its course.

Image courtesy of slowitdown