FLINT, Mich. -- The fall semester is drawing to a close at colleges across Mid-Michigan, and that means students will be rushing to the book store to see how much cash they can get for that biology or calculus textbook.

In most cases, it won’t be much. "It seems like every time I go to sell them back, if the professor's not using it the next semester, they'll take maybe $2 or $4," said Jennifer Profit, a senior at the University of Michigan, Flint.

The journalism and political science major estimates she’s spent $2,500 on textbooks over the past four years but only recouped about $200 selling them back to the campus bookstore.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Profit. “Tuition's expensive enough without added textbook prices, and if you can't sell the books back, there goes how many hundreds of dollars?”

Profit’s story is not unique as college students throughout the area told WNEM TV5 they were disappointed with the money they’d paid for used textbooks.

TV5 went to work to see if students can get more bang for their buck selling the books online.

The campus bookstore offered Profit $25 total for 10 books.

Five of them they would take back but only offered $2 or $3 for the rest.

TV5 borrowed Profit’s books to see what kinds of prices they might fetch online.

All a student needs to do is enter the ISBN numbers from the books on each site’s homepage.

Nearly every Web site TV5 visited offered more money than the bookstores.

Textbooksrus.com was the most generous, quoting $53.04 for all 10.

Valorebooks.com followed with $40.42 and major bookseller Barnsandnoble.com came in third with $38.95.

When Profit’s books were returned, TV5 asked if she had ever considered selling them online.

“I'm busy enough as it is without worrying about check the computer, seeing how much they're going to cost, packing them up and shipping them,” said Profit. “Way too busy to deal with that."

But when TV5 showed her how much more she'd get back, she quickly changed her tune. “I think taking the time to put them online was worth it, considering how much more money you can get,” said Profit.

All the Web sites TV5 researched also offered free shipping, when they bought back student books.