One email to the professor: will last year’s edition do?
Old editions of the same textbook sell for a fraction of the price. Students who asked first heard yes almost every time — two questions to send.
Found while reading 12,000+ real posts and commentsfound independently by 8 people
There is a two-question email that has saved students more money per word than almost anything else they write in college. Question one: would a previous edition of the textbook be sufficient? Question two: is the online access code actually required? Before you buy any course book, email the professor and ask whether last year’s edition will do — the answer is almost always yes, and the old edition costs a fraction of the new one.
The math of one email
One student sent that exact email — with a sentence offering to be responsible for any differences between versions — to nearly every professor across a degree, and could count the refusals on one hand. The savings read like typos: the current edition used for $90, the previous for $2. A $250 tenth edition, an $8 ninth. A $300 microbiology text, like new, for $5 plus shipping. Publishers reprint with shuffled page numbers and call it progress; professors know it, and professor after professor, people found, is happy to say so when asked. The offer to own the differences is the hinge — it converts your question from a request for a favor into a plan they just have to nod at.
Where the yes runs out
The refusals cluster in two places worth knowing in advance. The professor who authored the book — or works with its publisher — may genuinely require the current printing; one student remembered a publisher-affiliated professor who quizzed weekly from the new edition precisely to defeat this tactic. And courses that grade homework through an online platform can force the new bundle no matter what the professor prefers, because access codes are single-use and sold at full price. That’s why the second question travels with the first. Two sentences, sent before the semester, answered in a day — and the bookstore’s worst prices quietly stop applying to you.
Common questions
Why are old editions so cheap if they’re nearly the same book?
Because the resale market prices them like expired milk the moment a new edition prints — while the content barely moves. Students kept marveling at the same arithmetic: a $90 used current edition against a $2 previous one, a $250 tenth edition against an $8 ninth, a $300 microbiology book for $5 plus shipping. As one person put it about a calculus text: the subject hasn’t changed in a century; the edition number has.
What exactly do I write?
The version one student sent to nearly every professor, and had refused only once or twice in a whole degree: a greeting, the course name, then — would a previous edition of the required text be sufficient? I’m willing to be responsible for any differences between versions. Add the second question about access codes, thank them, done. The offer to own the differences is what makes it easy to say yes to.
Often carried together
Things people often carry alongside this one.
A natural next step
Full tip: https://findangel.org/tips/will-last-years-edition-do · FindAngel.org — free, always.