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College Marketplace is the student-only buy and sell app for the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Every account is verified with a @umn.edu email address, so you're only ever trading with other Gophers — not strangers from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.

Where Gophers buy and sell

Minnesota housing spreads across several neighborhoods, and all of them turn over every August. Whether you're on the Superblock in Centennial, Frontier, Pioneer, or Territorial, in Dinkytown at 17th Avenue, Sanford, Keeler, Radius, or Wilkins, over on East River in Comstock or Yudof, in Middlebrook on the West Bank, or in Bailey on the St. Paul campus, everything you need is already close by. Minnesota students post mini fridges, futons, storage bins, desk lamps, monitors, bikes, and gently used textbooks every semester — usually for a fraction of retail. Students living off campus around Dinkytown, Marcy-Holmes, and Como use it too. Same rule applies: verified students only, and the person on the other end is someone you'd pass on the way to class.

Meeting up across the river and across campuses

Minnesota is split by the Mississippi and stretches to a second campus in St. Paul, so pick a landmark you both actually pass. Coffman Memorial Union is the obvious East Bank choice, Walter Library and the Recreation and Wellness Center work for anyone on the main campus, Wilson Library covers the West Bank, and the St. Paul Student Center handles the Bailey Hall side. The campus connector runs between them if you need it. No shipping labels, no delivery fees, no driving across the Twin Cities to meet someone off Craigslist.

Textbooks without the bookstore markup

Course materials for engineering, business, and the sciences run into the hundreds of dollars a semester, and the same editions circulate through campus year after year. Buying from the Gopher who took the class last term beats the bookstore buyback spread on both ends — the seller gets more than the buyback price, and the buyer pays less than retail.

The weeks that matter most

Move-in in late August and move-out in May are when the marketplace is busiest. Graduating seniors and students heading home for the summer are clearing out furniture, fridges, and storage all at once, and incoming students need all of it. If you're selling, post before the rush. If you're buying, that's when the good stuff appears and disappears the same day.

Popular categories at Minnesota: textbooks and course materials · dorm and apartment furniture · mini fridges and microwaves · bikes and scooters · Gopher apparel and game day gear · winter gear and boots · electronics and monitors · event tickets · lofting kits and bed risers