3 Websites That Offer College Textbooks For Free

So you’ve paid your tuition, dormitory fees, and purchased a meal plan. You've also applied for scholarships and student loans and you're heading into your semester feeling good!   You breathe a sigh of relief thinking that your college costs have finally come to an end.

But just weeks before class starts, you suddenly remember you need... books.   How do you afford the books you need on your college budget? Free textbooks, that's how!   

More Resources: The best budgeting apps for college students

We found three websites that offer free textbooks online to college students, and we had to share.   Textbooks can be shockingly expensive, and once you’ve dished out money for every other cost involved with higher education, the last thing you want to do is shell out more cash for something you won’t use for more than a semester.   That cash is precious, and you need it to last you all semester long.   

More and more websites are popping up that offer free or discounted textbooks to college students.   Here are a few reputable sites that can help curb some of the last-minute fees associated with purchasing books for your classes.  

These amazing sites aim to provide students with Open Educational Resources (also known as OER’s) to make education more affordable.   Regardless of what you’re studying, these sites provide an opportunity to save hundreds of dollars and are worth checking out once you get your list of required textbooks.   

1.  Bookboon.com

Bookboon was created in 2005 and has since become the world’s largest provider of ebooks.   They offer a huge array of online books for college students and have over 1,000 college and university textbooks available to download - completely for free.  

Students studying STEM subjects or business may find this site particularly helpful, as the site was initially designed with these subjects in mind and they can be found on the very first page.   With compatibility for laptops, tablets, and cellphones, students can pick up where they left off with bookmark tools and a memo pad for taking notes.  

A cloud-based medium means there’s no installation, making Bookboon one of the most efficient resources available for students in the modern era.

   

2. OpenStax.org

A non-profit charity founded in 2011 by Rice University and supported by the likes of Bill Gates and others, OpenStax offers relevant, peer-reviewed texts from some of the top universities across the country.  

With a variety of subjects such as Math, Physics, Biology, Social Sciences, Humanities, Business and more, OpenStax boasts one of the most comprehensive collections available online (most of which is completely free).  

The site is used by almost 4,000 schools across the U.S., and over 2.2 million students use the site globally.   As the demand for more subjects increases, OpenStax continues to diversify their library. They will soon be expanding into computer and data sciences, nursing and liberal arts textbooks.  

If that wasn’t enough, OpenStax Tutor is a feature offered to support personalized learning and interactive homework for its users, making the site a valuable resource for students needing extra help.   

3. Saylor.org

While many other OER’s focus on the highest enrollment degree programs, Saylor Academy goes one step further and offers an impressive repository of ebooks for students in less traditional programs like Online Marketing and Social Media.   Available in PDF, EPUB and Microsoft Word formats, Saylor Academy also offers tuition-free college credits.

Saylor Academy provides students with over 100 free courses that are transferrable to over 30 partner schools.   The self-paced courses and certificates are completely free and have been helping students with an affordable, alternative option to in-class education since 2008.  

So, before you let the financial burden of funding college impact your educational experience, check out some of the above options for online copies of your required text.   You may just find that a higher education is well within reach without incurring extra debt.    

4. Betterworldbooks.com

There's certainly a chance you won't be able to find your textbooks for free, but that doesn't mean you can't get them at an extremely discounted rate. The best website you can go to for cheap textbooks is betterworldbooks.com.

They have the most affordable prices around and for every purchase that's made they help provide reading materials for schools around the globe that need them, hence their name!

Free textbooks are certainly the best option when you're trying to save money, but if you can't find your required text for free you might as well try and get it discounted to a company that gives back! 

Start searching for your textbooks!