The Huge Out-Of-Pocket Expense That Blindsides Most College Students

While it used to be a common-place idea that once you graduate high school, going to college was a necessary next step in the evolution of young adulthood, times are definitely changing. Seeing as the price of tuition just hit $100k for some colleges, it's understandable that many young people are wondering if a higher education is worth the financial burden that they will face upon graduating. Student loans are no joke, and unless you are pursuing one of the college degrees most likely to pay off, they can without a doubt be a hard thing to grapple with as you are fresh out of school.

That said, even if you do pursue a degree that results in a higher-paying job than most, secondary expenses like the cost of textbooks leave many students questioning if what they are doing is worth it. In what is quite an unfortunate circumstance, the price of textbooks is something that new college students often find themselves blindsided by. However, there are some solutions current college students can explore to potentially avoid these unwanted costs altogether.

Over the last 50 years, the price of college textbooks has risen by 1,401%. To put that in perspective, that is nearly three times the rate that inflation has risen during the same time frame. This is obviously quite the alarming statistic, and is adding an unnecessary amount of burden on top of the financial stress that college students already have to worry about regarding tuition. Not only that, but because textbooks are so expensive, according to research gathered by the Education Data Initiative, nearly 65% of college students have actually opted to skip buying them altogether, and 20% of students who fail college courses directly blame the price of textbooks alone.

Regardless, the Education Data Initiative found that between 2022 and 2023, on average, a student attending a 4-year university is spending $1,212 a year just on textbooks. Although this breaks down to around $100 a month, for a student attending school full-time, on top of other costs related to education, this can certainly add up.

For starters, since 2009, there has existed a tax credit if you're spending a lot of money on textbooks for your college courses each year. For parents and students, if you additionally file IRS Form 8863 on your taxes you can receive a $2,500 reimbursement on your tax return, more than double the average price of textbooks in a single year. This can be immensely helpful for students struggling with the burden of higher education costs.

Outside of this, for most modern college courses, a majority of universities are adopting a shared online resource system where students can access course materials. These allow you to source information from textbooks that may be required for your course curriculum in order to study and do your homework. And if all else fails, purchasing used textbooks, renting them for the semester, or applying for book scholarships can be useful methods of saving money. After all, purchasing a brand new textbook that you will likely only be using for a single course is a huge waste of money, and due to a variety of aforementioned resources available it's largely unnecessary to do.