De Anza College students struggle to afford books each quarter at the campus bookstore, and are turning to alternatives.
The bookstore across the street from De Anza, Premier, can sell books cheapter because it buys books from Amazon. The campus is restricted from setting up an account with Amazon by the district, said Jeri Montgomery, college bookstore director.
 “I usually buy my textbooks online,” said Qirgxia Yu, 18, a business administration major. “The difference is striking. For example, I bought a book at Amazon for $3 while here at the bookstore it costs $80.”
“Sometimes you do not have time to wait for a book to arrive, so you have to purchase it at the bookstore right away,” said Thaksin Thongsavath, 20, a computer science major and student bookstore worker. “A lot of students are unaware how to buy books online. They even do not know about another bookstore, Premier, across the street, where the same books are sold for less.”
George Leanos, a social work major, 33, spent about $400 on textbooks this quarter. “You have to buy the textbooks that your instructor wants you to have, otherwise you could not read a certain chapter at certain time, and that would hold you back,” he said.
“Every year, each major publisher raises prices 5 or 6 or even 10 percent,” Montgomery  said. Also, vendors want to sell seldom-used books at full price.
Loraine Tiratira, cashier for returns at the campus bookstore, said the policy for returns is to charge 15 percent. “That is sometimes big money, as textbooks are expensive,” she said.
Tiratira said she spends around $400 to $500 on textbooks every quarter.
Renting is another option, but not every textbook is available for rent. The bookstore makes the decision to make rental options available based on overall demand, Montgomery said.  
Aid programs are available on campus to help the students in need. “I applied for the program. The waiting list is long, but I hope next quarter I would get half of my expenses on textbooks,” said Leanos.
By the second day of the quarter, the bookstore lacked enough copies for his class. “The instructor told the students to go to the print shop and print certain parts of the textbook. It pulled me back, so I dropped the class.”
Elizabeth Jahn, online orders employee in the campus bookstore, said when she was a student she “always bought new textbooks at this bookstore, so more discounted books would be left for the students who need them.”