In the last few years, the average costs of new college textbooks have suffered a dramatic increase, forcing students nationwide to spend a fortune on their study materials. Although it may seem exaggerated, the costs of the total amount of college textbooks required by college students during a single school year often exceed the costs of the average student's tuition. Well aware of this fact, increasingly larger numbers of students have turned away from college bookstores, looking for new, more affordable ways of obtaining their required study materials.

Realizing that they are at risk of losing an important segment of their clientage, many bookstores across the country have prepared more affordable prices for topical college textbooks over the last few months. Some bookstores have started to reduce the average costs of used textbooks as well, hoping to stimulate the interest of college students in buying study materials from such resources. However, even with the recent discounts and special offers promoted by most new and used college textbook-selling offline resources, online bookstores still hold supremacy when it comes to purchasing textbooks for decent prices.

Thanks to the benefits offered to their clients, online bookstores and various other online college textbook-selling resources are literally assaulted by students in search of a good bargain. At present, more than two thirds of college students nationwide solely rely on online resources for purchasing their curriculum-required and facultative study materials. Impressed by their achieved exposure and by the great feedback received from college students, both new and used college textbook-selling bookstores that sustain their activity online have decided to further extend their offer by supplementing the number of study materials.

Certain web-based retailers have even dedicated their activity entirely to students, offering them the opportunity to browse through an extensive inventory of college books. The only minuses of purchasing college textbooks online consist in high shipping costs and long delivery time. However, these problems are usually accounted for by dedicated online bookstores, which often minimize delivery time and costs for regular customers.

Another great method of finding cheap college textbooks consist in regularly attending to online auctions. The major advantage provided by online auctions is that they enable students to buy the books that they are interested in for only a fraction of the normal cost. However, the main disadvantage consists in the considerably long delivery time.

Many programs initiated by various faculty representatives nowadays even offer students the chance to enter in possession of their required college textbooks free of charge! The study materials can be obtained in downloadable format and they include many popular, topical names. Downloadable college textbooks are properly constructed and easy to obtain, features that render them a suitable replacement to regular textbooks. Thanks to the combined effort of the initiators of such programs, existing downloadable college textbooks can nowadays be obtained along with downloadable study guides.