With classes beginning on Aug. 23, for Virginia Tech students and Aug. 30 for Radford University students, the mad rush to get textbooks has already begun. While some students choose to rely on the schools’ bookstores, others choose to shop around for the best deals.

According to New York Times blogger Tara Siegel Bernard, college textbook prices have risen around 6 percent every year, which is twice the rate of inflation from 1986 to 2004. Although some new rules have come into effect, like publishers can no longer bundle textbooks with accompanying materials without offering them separately, students often find themselves paying $1,000 a year or more for their books.

Alison Higgins, a senior Political Science (and former Biochemistry) major at Virginia Tech has to face these rising prices each semester.

“The most I’ve spent in one semester was $794.54, which was a mixture of both new and used books,” Higgins said. “And the most I’ve spent on just one book is $225.45.”

Higgins usually buys her textbooks from the Virginia Tech bookstores because she knows the books she needs will be available.

“The positives from buying from the bookstore are that you know that they will always have the correct publisher and right edition, which makes reading assignments noted by their page numbers easier to follow along with as well as less confusion about which sections are being covered in the class,” Higgins said. “You can also reserve your books through the bookstore and pick them up upon arrival to campus, which guarantees that you will get the books you need for your classes. You can be sure that the used books on sale will be of good quality, with minimal damage.”

Associate director of University Bookstore Virginia Tech Services, Inc. Dave Wilson, who represents both the Virginia Tech University Bookstore on campus and Volume 2 Bookstore off campus, said that Virginia Tech is one of the only schools nationally that discounts its books.

“A publisher will give us a suggested list price saying what the book should cost; sometimes they’ll even print the price on the book. But we try to give a slight discount below that price,” Wilson said. “We try to be as aggressive as we can on saving students money.”

The Virginia Tech Bookstore also sells many used books, which are around 25 percent less than new books, and there’s also the option to rent textbooks, which can save a student around 50 percent.

“We just buy the books from the publisher like we normally do, and we pick textbooks that we feel are going to be used multiple semesters, maybe used by the same professor more than once, and then we make those eligible to be rented,” Wilson said.

The Radford Book Exchange across from campus on Tyler Avenue also rents about 25-30 percent of its titles.

“Our corporate headquarters comes up with the list of books that we’re allowed to rent out,” Radford Book Exchange manager Steve Doremus said. “We can’t rent the book for (a course) like the University 100 class because those books are customized for Radford University and don’t have any national value, but we can usually rent books for your standard math, psychology, chemistry, English, things like that.”

When renting a textbook, students are still allowed to highlight and underline, but the book must be returned in a condition where it can be used again. For instance, pages cannot be torn out or it can’t get wet.

The Radford Book Exchange also has a membership card that gives you a $5 store credit every time you spend $150.

“Let’s say it costs you $450 at the campus bookstore, and then it also costs $450 here. But for every $150 you spend in the store, I give you a $5 store credit,” Doremus said. “Everything is exactly the same, but I’m going to give you $15 back.”

If you like to make sure you’re getting the absolute best bargain you can, there are many different online resources you can seek out to find cheaper textbooks.

For instance, there are also a number of companies that rent books online, such as Chegg.com, BookRenter.com, and CampusBookRentals.com. Moreover, ECampus.com rents, sells, and buys back textbooks.

Google Books has some free textbooks in their database, but you may not have access to every page so you could be missing some of the information you need for that particular class. In addition, Project Gutenberg has out-of-copyright books available for free, which can be useful for literature classes.

Furthermore, if you’re comfortable with reading off of a computer screen, you can order eTextbooks, which usually sell for about half as much as their printed versions. CourseSmart.com is one resource for this.

All in all, buying textbooks may put a dent in your bank account, but with a little research and preparation, you might not have to spend as much as you thought you would.

Lindsey Macdonald understands the pain of buying textbooks. In addition to being a fabulous intern for the New River Voice, she is a current student at Virginia Tech.