By Mariana Ashley
Back-to-school season is here. And while most incoming college freshmen have factored in the cost of tuition, housing and food, most forget to calculate the added expense of what should be one of the priciest items on their school supplies list—textbooks. Some, especially introductory freshmen course textbooks, can cost as much as $200 a piece. That’s considered a small fortune to a broke college-student. Maybe that’s why some students are skipping purchasing textbooks all together and are turning to a more lucrative and economically friendly alternative—textbook renting. This trend, which really only started to take flight about two years ago, is a great money saver: students can temporarily “borrow” textbooks for a fraction of the original price.
Chegg. Considered by many one of the pioneering textbook rental agencies on the market, Chegg offers a plethora of both hard-copy and electronic college textbooks. While the e-textbook catalog may be a little sparse, the hard-copy options are plentiful and students will more than likely find what they’re looking for. All a student needs is the ISBN number, the title, or the author of the textbook to look up the book they need in the site’s search bar.
*Additional tip: While some students may have access to a listing of textbooks in advance, it’s best if they wait until the first day of class before making any purchases. Their professor may just very well say on the course syllabus that a textbook is optional and it would be a waste to rent a book that he or she doesn’t need. And since textbooks are delivered via UPS mail in two short days, there should be no worries about falling behind in class. One of the major downsides of hard-copy textbook rentals however is that students are not allowed to write notes or highlighting any of the paragraphs.
Kindle Textbook Rental If a student would like to save even more money and happens to own a Kindle (or iPad/ Android tablet) he or she can rent e-textbooks from Amazon. The program, which was just launched in July, claims that students can save as much as 80% on each textbook—an example on the site shows a textbook originally priced at $109 offered for $40. Not only is an e-book a more eco-friendly option (saves trees) but you can also write notes and highlight paragraphs. The site also claims that students can rent textbooks for the exact time they need, so they don’t have to waste money. While the typical allotted time is in 30-day increments, students can request extensions for a small fee.
BookRenter BookRenters.com also offers textbooks (both traditional and electronic) at a discounted rate. While it specifically caters to 26 major-universities, including The University of Texas, New York University and University of California Los Angeles just to name a few, students from just about any school should be able to find what they need. Unlike the other companies, Book Renter allows customers to return their books within 21 days no questions asked.
GivePals. Lastly, while technically GivePals isn’t a textbook “rental” company it still works in a similar fashion—students can “rent”, buy, or sell textbooks from/to fellow students on campus through the site. While it currently only serves about 22 different campuses (it’s still in its beta stage) it is looking to expand; and since buyers/sellers can only be students that attend the same university, it’s far more trust worthy than sketchy sites like Craigslist. If you’re still a little confused about how it works make sure to check on the teaser video found on the site.
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