There’s no doubt that college is expensive. The high textbook prices on top of tuition costs can feel like adding insult to injury.
A total of 87 percent of students think that the biggest problem with textbooks is that they’re too expensive, and 62 percent of students try to reduce their textbook spending by buying used books, using textbook rentals, or borrowing textbooks from a friend.
The cost of textbooks has risen more than 88 percent in a single decade, and the purchases aren’t covered by financial aid.
According to the College Board, students spent about $1,250 on books and supplies each academic year. What would you do with that money if you didn’t have to spend it on books? Check out 70 other ways you could spend your textbook money.
Textbook Prices vs. Food Costs
If you didn’t have to spend money on textbooks, you could buy these food and drinks instead.
- A jar of Nutella every day for a year
- 12 bowls of ramen each day
- A Chipotle burrito every other day
- One Big Mac per day
- 20 smoothies per month
- Sushi three times per week
- FroYo fans could eat 5 cups of frozen yogurt per week
- Nine cups of coffee per week for a full year
- Eight pizzas per month
- Seven cans of La Croix each day, helping you build that wall of La Croix like the Whole Foods in Brooklyn
Textbook Costs vs. Phone App Purchases
Here are app services you could buy using the money you’d spend on textbooks:
- One Uber ride per week for a full year
- A year’s subscription to Spotify for you and 20 friends at the student rate of $4.99 per month
- An annual Netflix subscription for yourself and 11 friends
- Antivirus software for 110 devices
- Dragon Dictation service for 8 years, so you’ll never have to type a term paper again
- 18 years of VPN service at about $70 per year
- Password manager service for 52 years
Textbook Costs vs. Buying the Essentials
Rather than buying textbooks, you could use that money to pay for these basics:
- Cell phone plan for two years
- Six months of car insurance
- Two month’s rent in a 2-bedroom off-campus apartment shared with a roommate
- 385 loads of laundry at the laundromat
- Oil changes for eight years
- 13 pairs of eyeglasses from Warby Parker
- Pay off 30 percent of the average student’s credit card debt
- Wash your hair 11,359 times
- 250 rolls of duct tape
Textbooks vs. Shopping
Would you rather be hitting the shops instead of paying for textbooks? Here’s what you could buy if you didn’t need books:
- 29 pairs of Levi’s jeans
- Visit Target every 18 days, based on the average per-visit purchase amount for the retailer
- 50 hats with your college’s name
- Eight pairs of Ray-Ban shades
Buying Textbooks vs. Dorm Decor
Would you rather decorate your dorm room than spend money on textbooks? Here’s what you could buy instead of a year’s worth of books.
- 16 mid-century lounge chairs from Ikea
- Five Roombas
- A new mini-fridge each month
- 2,045 clothes hangers
Textbooks vs. Learning Costs
If the money you spend on textbooks were used for other learning expenses, you could buy the following:
- 10 percent of your tuition bill based on the average tuition cost of $10,230 for a four-year public school
- Take the GRE six times
- Lab fees for eight science and tech courses
Textbooks vs. Going Green
For the same amount that you’d spend on college textbooks, you could do the following:
- Adopt 23 baby seals from WWF
- Buy 60 reusable water bottles rather than adding more disposable plastic to the environment
- Buy 19 gallons of biodegradable Dr. Bronner’s soap
- Buy two pairs of Toms Shoes per month, helping provide footwear to those in need
- Buy 20 solar laptop chargers to reduce your dependency on fossil fuels
Textbook Spending vs. Travel
Would you rather use your textbook money to have an adventure? Here’s how far you could travel:
- Take a spring break trip to Cancun
- Buy enough gas to drive 11,355 miles, assuming your car gets 24.7 mpg with gas prices averaging $2.714 per gallon
- Pay for a week-long Airbnb stay in NYC
- Spend your summer traveling through Europe by train with a 3-month Eurail pass
- Pay for 0.6 percent of a trip to space
Textbook Costs vs. Tech Gadgets
Here’s what you could buy instead of spending money on textbooks:
- 30 pairs of mid-range noise canceling headphones, so you and your friends can have quiet for studying
- A 12-inch MacBook
- Four PlayStations to use when you’d rather not be studying
- A new FitBit each month for a year
- 10 quadcopter drones from Force1
Buying Textbooks vs. Paying for Fun Activities
Instead of buying textbooks, you could be spending your money on doing one of these fun activities:
- 11 movie tickets per month at the average ticket price of $9.11 each
- Three general admission tickets to Coachella
- 50 decks of Cards Against Humanity
- Four commuter bikes
- Tickets to 38 major league baseball games
- 1,156 red Solo cups per month
- Attend two yoga classes per week
- 23 skateboards
- 104 hours spent playing pool
Textbooks vs. Class Supplies
Textbooks aren’t the only course materials you’ll need. Using the money you’d spend on textbooks, you could buy the following:
- Three bookbags per month
- 20 notebooks per month
- 3,875 highlighters per year, helping your class notes to be clearly organized
- 88 citation guides so you’re never without an MLA Handbook
Textbooks vs. Becoming a Student Entrepreneur
If you’d rather start a business while you’re in school than pay for textbooks, student entrepreneurs could buy the following:
- Website hosting for 10 years
- 83 domain names to cover a bunch of similar business names
- 34,723 business cards to help your networking and marketing
To clarify, we’re not actually recommending that you don’t buy your textbooks. However, it sure is nice to think about what you could buy instead.