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One email to the professor: will last year’s edition do?

Old editions of a textbook sell for a fraction of the price. Students who asked first often heard yes — two questions to send.

From people’s experience shared onlinesome people found it on their own

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 a version of that email — with a sentence taking responsibility for whatever differed between versions — to nearly every professor, 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 many people found professors happy to allow the older edition 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 every week or two from the new edition so that students without the book failed. 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.

Worth knowing before you try

The noes are predictable, which makes them avoidable. Professors who wrote the textbook, or work with its publisher, may insist on the current edition — one person described a professor who gave regular quizzes from the current edition, so students without it failed. Math and problem-set-heavy courses renumber exercises between editions; one student advised borrowing the newer problems from a classmate, and said many of their professors would photocopy them when no classmate could help. Timing matters too: an email before the semester reads as diligence, while asking on day one may bruise a professor’s ego, as one person cautioned. And ask the access-code question every time — a $20 old edition is no bargain if the course grades homework through a $70 code that may come only with the new bundle.

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 calculus, the subject has seen little new in a century, and what changes between editions is the problem sets.

What exactly do I write?

The version one student sent to nearly every professor, and had refused only once or twice: a greeting, the course name, then — would a previous edition of the required text be sufficient? I’ll take responsibility for whatever differs between the 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.

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Forty prices for the same textbook — search the ISBN

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