"Son, I Used to Pay Thousands of Dollars for Textbooks…"

Remember paying astronomical prices for college textbooks that, once class was over, had only one possible use: as paperweights?

To the relief of parents everywhere, shelling out $182 for Principles of Biochemistry may become a thing of the past. Several recently funded start-ups make it cheaper, or in some cases free, for students to obtain books.

Akademos Inc. raised $2.5 million in August to support an online marketplace for students to sell books to each other, saving buyers an average of 61 percent off list prices. Flat World Knowledge LLC, funded earlier this year with $8 million in Series A money, provides digital versions of textbooks online for free, earning revenue and paying authors by giving students options to purchase soft-cover textbooks, audio books and self-print individual chapters.

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