COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- College can be costly, especially college books, but one local economics professor is hoping to help students save money through a new website called BookCheetah. 

Professor Daniel Johnson is known for thinking outside the box when it comes to teaching economics at Colorado College and now he's taking that thinking to the business world.

"I've been teaching economics for 15 years now. The most popular complaint I've had is the books are really expensive," Johnson said.

FOX21 asked a few students on campus how much they spend each year on books.

"Definitely a lot, probably about $1,000 or so," Philip Cieplak, a sophomore, said.

"Maybe $400 to $600 average," Elizabeth Asher, a junior, said.

"Probably at least a grand," Michael Morin, a junior, said.

In order to help students cut the cost Johnson came up with the idea of BookCheetah, an online match-making website for students looking to buy or sell books.

"You post what you want and what you have and you're looking for a match, someone who wants the books you have or who has the books you need," Johnson said.

The service matches buyers and sellers in the same area making it easy and convenient.

"It's a conversation starter. We'll match you with someone whose potentially a good fit for you and you can be the judge," Johnson said.

"I think it's a great idea. It could definitely help a lot of people save on their budgets," Cieplak said.

"In the United States on average the student in a college or a university setting spends about $1,000 a year on books. If you could even cut that in half, and realistically I think we can cut it by 90 percent, that's huge. Huge. I mean that could make the difference between going to college or not," Johnson said.

A small match-making fee between 30 cents to one dollar is charged to make the transaction complete but the sign up and all the browsing is free.

"The point never was to make money. The point is to make a difference. The point is to enable education. I would hate for cost to be the reason that someone doesn't get a great education," Johnson said. "That's just wrong in my mind."

Ten cents of every dollar of the match-making fee goes back to charities like Teach For America, Cheetah Conservation Fund, or the student's local student government.

There are currently around 15 to 20 active chapters on BookCheetah including Colorado College, Harvard, Yale, and University of Oregon.