subject: College Students and Cheap College Books [print this page] Let's look at an example to see what this can really mean. If you buy book X for your history class from the book store, you will probably pay about $80 used, or $100 for a new copy. If you are the first person in line to sell it back at the end of the year, they might pay $40 for it. You might find the same cheap college books online for about $55 or $60. Then when you sell it for $45 or $50, you end up spending much less than you did for the book store's copy. Don't fall for the trap of college text book stores.